CLARK FREEPORT – Neophyte Rep. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao of this province’s first district said yesterday he has filed in Congress two bills renaming this freeport, as well as the Clark International Airport (CIA) after the President’s late mother, former Pres. Cory Aquino.
The proposals, he said, were contained in his bills converting the government firms Clark Development Corp. (CDC) and the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) into authorities to shield them from politics.
In an interview here, Guiao said his proposals were filed in two bills, both pushing authority status for the two firms. One bill, however, proposed this freeport to be renamed Cory Aquino Freeport Zone, while the other bill would christen CIA as Cory Aquino International Airport.
Some 2,400 hectares of this former US air force base are under the CDC, while another 2,400 hectares are under the CIAC.
Guiao said the freeport and the aviation complex should have different entities. “They have to be separate because the freeport and the airport have different structures and call for different expertise,” he said.
He said the conversion of CDC and CIAC into authorities would ensure continuity in the projects and programs and shield them from politics, as his bill would provide their top executives with fixed terms in the way that appointive executives of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) have fixed six-year terms, regardless of change of national government administration.
Guiao noted that since CDC was founded some 20 years ago, it has had 12 presidents, thus affecting the continuity of freeport projects and programs. Politics has been largely blamed for such frequent change of leadership.
While change of leaders at the CIAC had been less frequent, the firm, which also manages and operates the Diosdado Macapagal airport terminal within the CIA complex, had also been affected by changing policies that had placed it under the CDC, and then later on detached as a firm directly under the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), only to be put later under the authority of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) during the term of Pres. Aquino.
Guiao’s proposal would thus rename CDC as Clark Development Authority that would run his proposed Cory Aquino Freeport Zone and the CIAC as Clark Airport Authority which would manage the proposed Cory Aquino International Airport.
“There’s no conflict with the name of the terminal which can continue to be named after former Pres. Diosdado Macapagal. But the entire aviation complex accommodating the terminal would then be named after Cory Aquino,” he explained.
He also justified the renaming of both government corporations after Mrs. Aquino. “The argument in favor of the name Clark as being already known worldwide cannot stand to the name of Cory Aquino who is better known all over the world,” he noted.
“Also, Cory Aquino had done much for Filipinos, especially in restoring our democracy, apart from the fact that she is from our region,” he said. Clark stands for pilot Maj. Harold Clark who was the first American to fly to Hawaii. He was raised in Manila and died in a plane crash in Panama in 1919.
Guiao expressed confidence that the renaming would readily gain support not only for these reasons, but also because Cory is the mother of current Pres. Aquino.
Guiao is the son of the late Pampanga Gov. Bren Guiao, who was once imprisoned with the President’s father, the late Sen. Benigno Aquino, during martial law. The elder Guiao was appointed by Cory as officer-in-charge of the Pampanga provincial government after People Power installed her as president in 1986.
This, even as Guiao assured employees of CIAC and CDC, the latter reputedly among the highest paid personnel in government corporations, of “status quo” in their salary level even if their agency in converted into an authority.
“They can be insulated from government salary standardization to make sure morale is kept high, but they should remain as performers,” he said.
