So Clark Development Corp. President- CEO Atty. Arthur P. Tugade hailed Capilion Corporate PTE Ltd. after the Singapore-based company signed in May 2014 an agreement with the state-owned firm for long-term lease and development of a three-hectare lot at the Clark Freeport.
Tugade had all the reasons to be jubilant: Capilion committing to invest a whopping P7 billion. Unarguably, the biggest ever under the Bedan watch at the CDC. Which becomes all the more gargantuan broken down to P2.3 billion per hectare. Whoa!
Located left side entering the main gate to the freeport, parallel to M. Roxas Highway, the area is planned for a “mixed-used facility that could be used for business process outsourcing (BPO), residential, commercial, and retail enterprises” targeted for completion “in three phases by the end of 2018.”
Breaking ground a mere eight months from signing – an “early milestone,” CDC praise released in January 2015 – the Capilion project assumed a name: Clark Green Frontier “envisioned to be the new face of Clark while serving as the benchmark for future developments to come.”
A template of development indeed: P7-billion investment, 75,000 in employment, in seven years. Why, the numbers alone spell luck. Even as the company – “a part of the Capilion Group of Companies, Capilion Financial Ltd. and Capilion RE Engineering Ltd. with vast interests in private equity, corporate services, real estate, financial securities, ship ownership, shipping and shipbuilding, infrastructure development and clean and renewable energy projects” all over Asia – reeks of fortune.
Fortune further finding manifest in Capilion – right upon signing – presenting to CDC demand drafts worth $4.9 million (around P215 million) to represent its advance lease, security deposit and performance security plus a reservation for another 8,639 square meters adjacent to its leased property, as well as bank certification confirming its P2-billion fund for the property development in Clark.
As it has the gold, so Capillon can be so bold, as to declare: “Clark Green Frontier is a landmark development for Clark. It will nfunction as a work, entertainment, and leisure hub enhancing further Clark’s reputation as a progressive and exciting destination.” So quoted the CDC praise release of Capilion President-CEO Peter Tay during the groundbreaking rites.
That Tugade struck gold in his Capilion deal is an idiomatic understatement. It is for real. That there are now misgivings, whispered as yet, about the “rightness” of the Clark Green Frontier project would most surely test and tax the temper of the Tatalonian toughie anew.
What green?
Nothing’s green about Clark Green Frontier but the painted fence now walling off the project site. So howled a city environmentalist apprehensive of the fate of scores of trees – mostly mahogany, arbol del fuego and acacia – that have rooted and reproduced for decades on the leased property.
“We are bracing for the next arboreal massacre in Clark, after that of Mimosa and the Global Gateway areas,” said the local green warrior, warning that a “writ of kalikasan” is at this time already being considered if only to stay the “execution” of trees at the Capilion site. No, the environmentalist did not want to be identified for now, pending the drafting of a manifesto to be officially issued by their group in partnership with other like-minded organizations.
A former CDC official meanwhile questioned the “propriety, if not the legality” of locating a commercial enterprise at the very site awarded to Capilion.
“During our watch, when the Clark Freeport did indeed boom in the number of locators and employment generated, we declared that very site, along with some others around the freeport as a ‘green buffer zone’ to ecologically balance the inroad of industrialization and commercialization in Clark,” the ex-CDC executive told a group of local media over coffee at SM Clark’s Krispy Kreme.
He would not know though, he admitted, if Tugade and his board had revoked the policy declaration crafted during his time at the CDC. Still, he said, “as respect for the environment and cognizant of climate change, some other areas in Clark could have been awarded to Capilion, other than the buffer zone. Like those Tugade brags about as having been ‘repossessed’ by CDC for being unutilized.”
Losing the view
As yet (to this writing) unclarified by the CDC public relations section is the report that the Capilion project would primarily comprise a nine-storey building that runs the full length of its leased area facing SM City Clark, through the main gate to the intersection going to SCTEx and beyond. And that it will have access from both M.A. Roxas Highway and the perimeter road, aka Don Juico Avenue.
A hotelier in the immediate area remarked that given such dimension, the panoramic vista of Clark from Don Juico Avenue will be totally blocked.
“Clarkview [the name of a subdivision there which has come to be applied to the rest of that locality] will be devoid of meaning,” he rued.
At the time of the Americans in Clark, plans to put up a concrete fence around the base perimeter – especially after the killing of four US servicemen in October 1987 – did not push through after the communities lobbied American base officials not to deprive them of their view of Clark.
‘Desecration’
Even Angeles City-based American veterans are reportedly agitated over the Capilion project for what is said to be its “desecrating impact” on the American Cemetery at Clark.
“A nine-storey edifice across the cemetery will look down not only on the sacred ground but also on our flag. That’s disrespecting the nation symbolized by the flag, that’s dishonouring our heroes,” said a retired US Air Force officer who gave his name as Joe Davis.
The American Cemetery is also part of the green buffer cited by the ex-CDC official. A law signed by President Barack Obama has placed the cemetery under the American Battle Monuments Commission two years ago and has since received US funding for its upkeep.
“This unfortunate development will definitely reach the US Embassy and the US Congress,” Davis said, referring to the Capilion project.
Gridlock
Wednesday last week, at a coffeeshop in SM City Clark, I chanced upon former 1st District Rep. Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin and his son, City Councilor Pogi Lazatin, with prospective city vice mayor Atty. Willy Rivera and some barangay officials.
One from Malabanias sought the advice of Councilor Pogi regarding a letter endorsing the Capilion project which, he said, he was being asked to sign by some CDC staff.
“While I can see the economic benefits the barangay will derive from this project, I am fearful of the social cost, foremost of which is the traffic mess, it will entail,” the barangay leader said in Tagalog.
Rush hour traffic now at the Checkpoint area already goes bumper-to-bumper.
“How much worse it will get once the Capilion commercial building opens,” he noted.
Restrictions
“Not only the economic but also the social, legal, and ecological aspects need intensive study before any project is given the go signal for implementation,” the young Lazatin said.
“Aside from its environmental impact, the Capilion project – if indeed is nine-storey high – warrants some certification from the Civil Aeronautics Authority of the Philippines that it meets the height limits or is outside the restriction radius of the Clark airport,” Pogi said. “I am definitely interested in this project, the welfare of our constituents, of our very city isat stake here.”
Someone suggested to the councillor to invite the CDC and Capilion officials to a city council committee hearing on the Clark Green Frontier project.
RA 7227
As a matter of course, it will fall on the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement to take the cudgel in this emerging flashpoint in its long struggle for the full development of Clark, the freeport and its airport.
PGKM’s main base of contention is the probable violation of “the word, intent and spirit of Republic Act 7227” that specifically mandates the parallel development of the communities contiguous to the former military bases through their conversion into freeports as engines of economic growth.
In the case of Clark, as “labor-intensive, export-oriented, aviation-driven haven of investment,” if we remember the mantra of every CDC president from Tito Henson and Romy David, through Rufo Colayco and Tony Ng to Ping Remollo.
The Capillon project being “mixed-used facility that could be used for business process outsourcing (BPO), residential, commercial, and retail enterprises” makes a cut-throat competition – instead of complementation – to those very same enterprises hosted by the communities around Clark.
Aye, from that standpoint alone, Capillon makes a total negation of RA 7227. But is Tugade listening? Better yet, will Tugade oblige us of any clarification on these issues swirling around the Capilion project?
A writ of transparency is served before you, Sir.
