ANGELES CITY—Improvements and widening of the alternate road leading to the MacArthur Highway from the Clark Freeport Zone’s Friendship Gate are all set after the city council passed a resolution reclassifying it from local to national road.
Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan said he already signed the SP resolution and the only impediment is the submission of deeds of donations (DOD) from five families along the 8.5-kilometer road, officially called the Clark Circumferential Road, from Clark’s Friendship Gate to the MacArthur Highway at Paning’s in Barangay Telabastagan, City of San Fernando.
The existing old road is pockmarked and narrow to accommodate the increasing volume of traffic.
City Planning and Development Officer David David identified the five families whose properties run parallel to the road that have not submitted their DODs as required by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) as the Lazatin, Nepomuceno, Lim, and Ocampo families as well as the Noblesse International School which will have about 800 square meters of its property to be taken up by the road widening.
David said he was assured by the camp of Lazatin that they will submit their DOD as soon all the others have submitted theirs. The others like the Lim family are seeking a tax rebate and a real property tax moratorium as a condition before submitting their DODs, he said.
David said the DPWH has given this city the scope of the whole road segment even if the city’s boundary ends at the Villa Leoncia Subdivision in Barangay Sto. Domingo here to pave the way for the unhampered program of works since majority of it is within this city.
David disclosed that only less than a kilometer of the road lies outside this city.
Meanwhile, Pamintuan said he may impose the city government’s Constitutional prerogative of the “power of eminent domain” over some of the property owners if they will not submit their DODs in time, citing the road project as “urgent.”
The mayor also said five full-grown acacia trees will have to be removed at the entrance of the road at Paning’s to give way for a wider access of the road. However, he said some 700 trees along the Circumferential Road will be spared.
