CLARK FREEPORT – At least P130 million worth of projects are in full blast in this freeport and peripheral areas for a November deadline timed for hosting some 1,200 delegates to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here from January to February next year.
Clark Development Corp. (CDC) manager Jose Miguel Fuentes, who is in charge of the preparations for the APEC summit here, said some 96 illegal stalls have already been removed from a three-kilometer sidewalk along Clark’s main entrance to pave the way for a park suitable for jogging.
Some P167 million was allocated for this project, he noted. Fuentes also said that gasoline-powered jeepneys would be gone by the time the APEC delegates arrive, amid current negotiations between a manufacturer and local jeepney operators over a scheme that would replace gasoline- fed public utility vehicles with e-jeepneys which, he noted, would be environment friendly as they would run on electrically charged batteries.
At the Bayanihan Park at Clark’s main gate in Angeles City, heavy equipment have been working 24/7 to finish a rotunda measuring 26 meters in diameter, reportedly to be Luzon’s biggest roundabout when finished. This would cost some P16.5 million.
“All the funds could come from the CDC which has been posting significant earnings since Tugade took over,” Fuentes said, referring to CDC President-CEO Arthur Tugade who would be a year in his post this December.
Fuentes also said that the Clark Museum is being rehabilitated and upgraded to include a new 4-dimension theatre attached to it, on top of more spaces for artifacts. “The 4-D theatre would be the fifth of its kind in the country, with a capacity for 45 persons who would experience not only the three dimensions of theatre, but also feel a fourth dimension of what they’re seeing,” he noted.
Fuentes said the CDC now has more funds for developing the freeport, but that all the projects lined up could not be finished in time for the APEC which starts here on Jan. 22 and lasts up to February next year. “We have plans to build a large stadium where a stage is now located at the parade grounds.
In front of that stadium will be constructed facilities for world-class baseball and other kinds of sports,” he said.
Fuentes also bared plans to use LED lights in all streets within this freeport.
