That’s the “real” reason rising out of the “forcible” take-over of the leased property of Steven Kim by the Clark Development Corp. which constrained the Korean locator to take CDC head honcho Atty. Arthur Tugade to the Ombudsman.
(See today’s banner story).
So claimed someone “totally in the know,” being deeply embedded in the CDC woodwork.
Understandably, the source asked for “very deep background” status – not the least bit of info to give away even just gender: “For swift and severe shall be the vengeance of the Boss upon me, for my disclosures.”
Just like that inflicted upon the hapless Kim. As the source’s story goes…
Kim is being punished by CDC for organizing the Lubao International Balloon Festival which already had its second run last March.
Why? The Lubao event definitively took the wind out of the sails of Clark’s own international balloon fest, for which Kim also did pioneering work in 1994, along with then Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor, then-as-now Tourism RD Ronnie Tiotuico, and Briton John Emery.
Clark for the longest time had absolute franchise, aye, total monopoly of hot air ballooning in the country. The impresario Capt. Joi Roa, who took over the event from the DOT from its third edition, claimed veritable patent of the festival and all appurtenances thereto.
So, when this Roa deemed that there should not be any “weekend of everything that flies” for February 2014, the CDC enthusiastically hailed this as “preparation for an even grander festival in 2015.” Totally confident of the impossibility of another balloon fest outside Clark, sans Roa.
This, I know: At the time of the cancellation of the Clark balloon fest, Kim and Tiotuico had already on board 28 international balloonists committed to the festival.
To save face, the two looked for other ballooning sites which they found – with the help of Angeles City 4-Wheelers stalwart Noel Castro, the man in charge of the chase crews from the early days of the Clark balloon fest – in Lubao.
Exceeding all expectations – and frustrating all efforts to sabotage it, with Roa and CDC disdainingly disowning the least association with it – the Lubao balloon fest turned out with more participants – at 38 – than Clark ever had.
And more – balloonists found the Lubao winds akin to the so-called “Albuquerque Box” – described as a weather phenomenon where the lowest winds are moving in one direction and the higher level winds are moving in another – which is most favoured for ballooning, and far, far superior to Clark’s unidirectional winds. On its second year, Lubao did even better with 43 balloons, including 15 specially shaped ones – more than Clark’s again, on both counts.
Lubao thus positioned itself as the superior site for ballooning, way over Clark, especially with the growing concern over the safety of commercial flights at the Clark airport during the festival. As a matter of precaution, a number of flights were reportedly delayed to give way to the balloons last February.
For the longest time too, CDC has closed its eyes to the incongruity, if not the insanity, of ballooning within an international airport hub. Nowhere in the world, onli in da Pilipins, specifically Clark, does this anomaly obtain.
The success of the Lubao balloon fest took the sheen out of Clark’s signature festival, aye, verily the CDC’s flagship project – what with its annual subsidy of P3 million, non-liquidated, non-audited at that!
That naturally would not sit well with Tugade. Call it amor propio, pride of Clark, or, in the contest of the issue at hand, heady airiness.
So someone’s got to pay for this insult. Thus, vengeance unleashed on Kim, his contract cancelled, his leased property appropriated. So went the source’s story.
To be fair, it takes some stretch of malice to ascribe vendetta as cause of Kim’s current strait, cognizant of Boss Chief Tugade’s putative transparency and judiciousness in managing the CDC.
A misreading there, the source reminded us:
“It’s all in Tugade’s character.”
Or have we forgotten, how the “cussing, shaming CDC Bossman bullied his way into the deepest recesses of fear and terror at the very core of the CDC employees being” right at his very first flag ceremony when he laced his speech with “Pu…ina” and told personnel to smile at the count of three.
And how, at his second flag rites, Tugade made fun of an employee whom he caught frowning by having him come up front and made him smile.
On that same occasion too, how Tugade called to the microphone another female employee whom he caught standing in the shade and made her stand under the sun. Then he turned to the others standing in the shade and also made them stand under the sun.
“The brusko in Tugade shows capability to do what was done to Kim,” the source insisted.
Can’t help but sense some sensical balloon-ey there.
