In a public hearing on road projects for the summit, stateowned Clark Development Corp. (CDC) officer-in-charge Alveen Tabag said the C.M. Recto and Abad Santos Avenues in this freeport are set to be widened by this July in time for the ASEAN Summit.
He cited reports that Clark could play host to heads of states, as he named US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Philippine chairmanship of ASEAN this year has the theme “Partnering for Change, Engaging the World.”
“If the road projects are not completed, we might shift to Plan B,” he said. Asked what Plan B was, he said it referred to the holding of the summit in Metro Manila.
The public hearing was held amid the need of public hearing on the cutting of huge trees to pave the way for the road widening projects.
CDC documents furnished to the hearing participants indicated that over seven kilometers of the two avenues are slated to be widened to four lanes. Some portions would be widened to six lanes.
The CDC, however, had already bid the projects into three packages. CDC records showed that a 24-kilometer stretch of the C.M. Recto Avenue was awarded to contractor RD Policarpio for P51.7 million, a 1.8 –kilometer stretch of Abad Santos Avenue was awarded to VVH Construction for P36.5 million, and another 3.4 kilometer stretch of the same avenue was awarded to RM Mallari Builders for P37.9 million.
Tabag said a total of 66 big trees are to be affected by the widening project, although 44 of them could be balled and replanted to other areas.
