“A VERY stupid argument.”
That, in the learned judgment of business mogul Manny V. Pangilinan, is the government’s contention that the distance between Clark and the country’s business center makes the single deterrent, aye, the very damnation, to the Clark International Airport from being the Philippines’ premier international gateway.
Clark took center stage at Monday’s business forum hosted by the Kapampangan Development Foundation in celebration of MVP’s 68th birthday at Holiday Inn Resort Clark.
Clark is “too far” from Metro Manila. Yes, we have heard that from just about everyone the advocacy group Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement has dossiered as “conspiring to sabotage the full development of Clark” from Mar Roxas, in his position as transportation secretary, to his successor Joseph Emilio Abaya, from San Miguel Corp. and Philippine Airlines’ Ramon Ang to President BS Aquino III himself.
Aye, President BS has invoked that too-far argument all too often, as a matter of course whenever the issue of the Clark airport crops up.
At the induction of new LP members in the City of San Fernando on Oct. 6, 2012, he had this to say: “A plan is not yet set on whether or not we are moving to Clark [as the new international gateway],” citing the 80-kilometer distance between Clark and Metro Manila, which, according to him “is longer than the 40-km standard enforced on airports of many countries.”
In the absence of a high-speed train, President BS said, it would be difficult to convince passengers to travel three to four hours to CIA.
And then only this July 1, during the Philippine Air Force’s 67th anniversary rites at Air Force City, Clark, your President said: “Iyong tren, it’s still a goal. We are still trying to realize it but it has to become feasible. Iyong tren kasi cannot just reach Caloocan, for instance, or even Bulacan.
It has to reach, what they call the central business districts at minimum iyong Ortigas area or even iyong Makati area.
Without that, hindi magiging practical for our foreign tourist especially the business sector, the investors to go to Clark then take a two hour trip to the central business districts as a minimum.
Parang they’d rather prefer a premium price to be paid landing in Metro Manila rather than Clark.”
“A very stupid argument.” Though MVP made no direct reference to anyone who could have made that argument.
Obviously, he did not have to. The stupidity all too patent in the character. Succinct was MVP: “Clearly, Clark to NAIA is about 100 kilometers so that’s the perception… ang layo niyan (it’s too far)… we probably have the longest distance for any pair of airports in the world as indeed we probably do, but I find it a very stupid argument because technology has moved ahead to make distance agnostic.”
As we have long been saying here: “Distance is not measured in miles or kilometers, but in travel time.” So MVP holds: “Travel time is more essential than the measurement of the actual distance.”
And then: “(Distance) doesn’t matter… what you do is to speed up the train system.” As: “In the Narita expressway, you run at a certain speed before it would bring you from Narita to Tokyo terminal station, about an hour or less even if Japan has the technology to make travel time faster, like 20 minutes.
But they don’t want that because it’s too expensive. Generally the masses (people) cannot afford so they do it in an hour because that is the most comparable distance by bus.”
Applied locally: “Obviously from Clark to Makati, you speed up the train to bring your passengers in less than an hour.
About 120 kph rated speed but you must calibrate the speed to the target three stops like one in the north at SM Balintawak then another in Manila at Dimasalang and then fi nally in Buendia, Makati. It’s the same with Hong Kong’s train stops at Tsing Yi, Kowloon and Central.”
Clark too far from MM. Indeed, a stupid argument. “Kung pepengga-pengga ang tren mo, masyadong malayo (If you have a rickety train, it’s too far). Obviously you need a high speed train (to close in the distance).”
For the longest time, MVP has been saying a definitive policy declaration on Clark by the Aquino government is all it takes for his group to invest here, particularly in the development of the Clark International Airport, complete with its own railway system.
At the sidelines of last year’s PLDT stockholders meeting where he sits as chairman, MVP disclosed to media that he had commissioned a study on the railway system fitted to Clark: “So our thinking has always been to have a high speed train that will connect Clark with NAIA…”
And for the longest time too, all that’s coming from the BS Aquino administration is Clark’s seemingly unbridgeable remoteness from Metro Manila.
Stupid. Really stupid.
