CLARK FREEPORT – Plans are a foot to revert back the name of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) here to simply Clark Inter-national Airport (CIA) purportedly for “practical purposes.”
Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) vice president for operations Reynaldo Catacutan confirmed this in a telephone interview yesterday, but said that the proposal has yet to be tackled by the CIAC board on Nov. 18.
However, Catacutan declined to give more data on the proposal nor did he reveal who initiated the move, saying that the move still has to be made known to Pres. Aquino. He said the issue could be “politically sensitive.”
But a source who asked not to be identified as he was not authorized to talk about the proposal said the move had “nothing to do with politics” amid the string of criminal and other cases being brought against former Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, daughter of former Pres. Diosdado Macapagal after whom the airport here was named in 2003 during her term.
“The name of Diosdado Macapagal, who remains to be revered by his fellow Kapampangans, will still be retained under the proposal for the existing airport terminal to be named after him.
Thus, the existing terminal would be called Diosdado Macapagal terminal I, while the entire aviation complex which covers 2,500 hectares would be named Clark International airport,” the source said.
He also cited the “practical side” of the proposal. “After the Americans abandoned their former US air force base and the area was declared a freeport, a proposal to rename it was defeated by those who insisted that the name Clark is already known and should be capitalized on to attract foreign investors,” he said.
“This is the same reason for the proposal to name the airport here as Clark. This is apart from the fact that most foreigners rather find the name of the former Kapampangan president hard to remember and pronounce,” he said.
In 1995, former Pres. Ramos declared the Clark airport here as “the future site of the country’s premiere international airport.”
In 2003 during the term of former Pres. Arroyo, it was renamed after her late father by former Clark Development Corp. president Emmanuel Angeles whom she later appointed chairman of the Commission on Higher Education.
Only recently, Transportation and Communications Sec. Manuel Roxas bared plans to transfer the country’s premiere airport to Clark amid proposals to sell the old Ninoy Aquino International Airport to raise funds for such move.
This freeport used to be known as Clark US Air Force Base until the Americans left it following the pending eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1992, coupled with the junking of the US-RP Military Bases Agreement by the Philippine Senate.
The base was named after Maj. Harold Clark of the US Army Signal Corps who died in a seaplane crash in the Panama Canal on May 2, 1919.
