CLARK FREEPORT – Has the state-owned Clark Development Corp. (CDC) become a political pie now being apportioned to pay off political debts of the Aquino administration?
This question has intrigued investors here amid reports in local newspapers that a congressional candidate of Pres. Aquino’s Liberal Party (LP) who lost in last year’s polls in Pampanga is now being pushed by Malacanang to become executive vice president of CDC which runs this freeport.
Earlier, former Dumaguete City mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo, also a member of the LP who had campaigned for Aquino and his vice presidential running mate Mar Roxas, already assumed post as president and chief executive officer of the CDC.
He was the first politician to be named to the post since the creation of the CDC in 1993 following the abandonment by Americans of this former US Air Force base.
Reports said Jose Quiwa III, an official LP candidate who lost in the congressional race in this province’s third district is being eyed as the next executive vice president of CDC. The current executive vice president is Philip Panlilio whose appointment was reportedly backed by former Pres. Arroyo.
In text message to Punto, however, Remollo said he was not aware of plans to make Quiwa his executive vice president.
“I have no idea. Under our by-laws, the executive vice president is appointed by the president of the CDC with concurrence of the board,” Remollo said.
Remollo has denied that his entry into the CDC was pushed by fellow Visayan Roxas who has just been named secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communication. He said that as early as of last year, the President himself had intimated his appointment to the CDC post.
Hundreds of CDC workers, however, welcomed his appointment amid his plans to push tourism as a major thrust of the government corporation.
Pampanga 3rd district Rep. Aurelio Gonzalez, the candidate of the Lakas party who won against Quiwa, said that CDC would indeed be politicized should the Aquino administration pave the way for his appointment to the government corporation.
“It would look that way since both (Remollo and Quiwa) are politicians and partymates of Pres. Aquino,” he said.
However, Gonzalez said that he would not block any move to install Quiwa in the CDC, as he would prefer “concentrating on delivering basic services to my constituents.”
Quiwa has a pending electoral protest against Gonzalez before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal.
At least three newly appointed members of the CDC board are also known as political supporters of the Aquino administration.
