Promise undelivered. Giant tarpaulins near Friendship Gate lay the boom on the non-development of the Clark airport.
Photo by Ric Gonzales
CLARK FREEPORT – Transportation and Communications Sec. Mar Roxas is under fire from local multi-sectoral leaders who had fought in the 1990’s to transform Clark airport here into an international gateway, amid their fears that the airport’s full development has been “pawned for some interests in the 2016 presidential elections.”
Huge tarpaulin signs greeted yesterday motorists entering and exiting this freeport’s gate along Friendship Avenue in Angeles City, expressing “conspiracy and sabotage” in the full development of the Clark International Airport (CIA) here.
Ruperto Cruz, chairman of the multi-sectoral group Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) urged Roxas to resign amid his alleged failure to fully develop the CIA.
The PGKM was among those who pushed for Clark as international airport, leading to Executive Order 174 signed by former Pres. Ramos in 1994, declaring Clark as the “future site of the country’s premiere international airport.”
“We have waited 20 years, but up to now there is no sign that the main terminal will be constructed. There is no information on this. The present airport’s lobby and receiving counters are good only for passengers of two small airplanes,” he lamented.
Cruz also noted that the services provided by the Bureau of Immigration “is good only for passengers of one airplane.”
“I don’t think we have hope under the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).
There seems to be conspiracy and sabotage against the full development of CIA. The developments are mostly mere publicity,” he said.
Cruz cited nagging reports that some of the country’s business magnates have been against the transfer of the country’s main international airport from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Clark.
“It is possible that there were compromises, considering that Mar Roxas is known to be interested in running for president in 2016,” he added.
Cruz also lamented that since DOTC took over the CIA, Roxas, who then became the chair of the board of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC), has never presided over any board meeting.
In December last year, Pres. Aquino issued Executive Order 64 making CIAC an attached agency of the DOTC which was given administrative control and supervision over the Clark aviation complex where CIA is located here.
Cruz also questioned the P100-million budget allotted by the DOTC for a feasibility on the CIA, the same concern expressed recently by Zambales Rep. Mitos Magsaysay who called the amount “excessive.”
In an interview with Punto, however, CIAC president and chief executive officer Victor Jose Luciano exonerated Roxas from allegations he was merely using the CIA for political reasons.
“There is no politics whatsoever in the role of the DOTC at the Clark airport. That’s not true,” he said.
Luciano noted that the CIA is not at a standstill, as he cited an ongoing feasibility study funded from a grant from the Asia Foundation for the construction of a new low cost terminal similar to Kuala Lumpur’s. This would cover about 30 hectares, he added.
Luciano explained that this study, for which the government is not spending at all, is different from another costing P100 million from DOTC funds.
“The P100-million feasibility study would cover everything, including the vertical structures all over the 2,000-hectare aviation complex,” he noted. He recalled that other studies in the past were “mere land use plans” that identified where features of the aviation complex are to be located.
Luciano, however, admitted that Roxas, since the DOTC takeover of CIAC, has yet to personally preside over a meeting of the airport board. But this is “because DOTC has 28 agencies agencies attached to it,” he explained.
He said, however, that Roxas has designated his undersecretaries to preside over board meetings in his behalf. In the case of the CIAC, Roxas designated Undersecretary Jose Lotilla as his representative.
Luciano also reported that the P1-billion loan of CIAC from the Land Bank of the Philippines has remained untouched at the bank pending the fulfillment of all legal requirements. He said the amount is for the completion of Phase 1 of the existing passenger terminal.
He denied that CIAC is obtaining a P8 billion loan from the Philippine Veterans Bank, amid estimates that a world class terminal here would cost some P12 billion.
Luciano stressed that the new lost cost terminal, which is the subject of the Asia Foundation-funded feasibility study, would accommodate 10 million passengers annually. “It would be finished and fully operational by 2015,” he added.
