“Clark is a very important destination now for the Philippines,” Duterte said in his speech during the Kapampangan Food Festival here on Thursday.
“What Clark lacks now is the infrastructure for mobility, but…I think, in the fullness of God’s time, we will have it. I hope it would come, even half of what they have offered so far, even just half of all the planned projects. Clark is a very important arterial place because it leads to the exit of Luzon upward, and in the development, because it is very important that we disperse the industries,” the President said.
He added that he recommended Clark to some investors for future business ventures, saying it is an ideal site for infrastructure projects as he pressed for the fast-tracking of the government’s infrastructure program to spur economic growth in major urban centers outside of Metro Manila.
The President also said Metro Manila will be a dead metropolis in only 25 years and, due to this, the government will have to disperse the industries to the provinces to maintain the country’s steady economic growth.
Duterte specifi ed Clark as crucial to the “Build, Build, Build,” the government’s infrastructure program, as a number of projects intended to decentralize Metro Manila are located in the developing city.
The President told Kapampangans in attendance that they are lucky their province is blessed with a landscape perfect for infrastructure development.
“It used to be a bane for ultra-nationalists or to the communists in this country—the exis- tence of military bases, the Americans,” Duter- te said, adding that it is somewhat alien to the rest of the country due to its inhabitants—a mix of locals and foreigners.
He was apparently referring to Clark Air Base which was previously maintained by the United States Air Force as part of the Military Bases Agreement that was scrapped by law-makers in 1991.
What used to be a “bane” became a blessing for the Kapampan- gans, Duterte said, as Pampanga later on be- came the owner of Clark. Clark is critical to the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” campaign.
The infrastructure program aims to develop the Clark International Airport and Clark Green City as part of efforts to attract industries and people to move outside of Metro Manila.
The Clark Development Corp. said in a statement the Clark com- munity is so elated that no less than President Duterte is endorsing the development of Clark as the next major industrial hub in the country.
“It gives so much in- spiration to achieve the plans of the national leadership for Clark and the local communities in pursuit of nation building,” it added.
