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By Joey Aguilar, Correspondent
ANGELES CITY: The plan to develop
a central business district at the Diosdado Macapagal International
Airport (DMIA) as proposed by the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) met
with strong critical reaction from concerned citizens.
Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement issued
a statement that dismissed the proposal and underscored how it will
adversely affect the development of a mega-logistics and services
hub in Central Luzon.
CDC President Levy Laus is in the
center of this brewing controversy and the focus of criticisms.
“Laus does not know what he’s
doing,” said the group president Ruperto Cruz. “Unless, of
course, all he’s interested in is putting up a car display in the
proposed central business district, which may be his main reason for
pushing the proposal.”
The proposed location of the CBD
inside Clark is a 300-hectare lot known as Industrial Estate 5 (IE5)
immediately adjacent to DMIA’s twin runways built by the Americans
during Clark’s heyday as a US military installation.
Through Resolution 98-07-67
approved in July 1998, the BCDA set down Clark International Airport
Corp.’s (CIAC) area to be around 2,500 hectares covering a
“contiguous area within the Main Zone” of Clark ecozone,
including the IE5 site.
Cruz said Laus “doesn’t know
the potential of Clark” and the DMIA, which has on record more
than 480,000 international and domestic passengers. “You don’t
reduce the size of an airport, especially an international
airport,” continued Cruz, instead you expand.”
Alexander Cauguiran, CIAC’s EVP/COO,
earlier said that the bigger issue is not who owns or who has
jurisdiction over the CBD area. Instead, it is the project’s
adverse impact to “our long-term plan of positioning the DMIA as
the future international airport of the country.”
Cauguiran confirmed statements of
Rep. Carmelo Lazatin of the First District of Pampanga who said
that the proposed site of the CBD at the Clark Freeport Zone belongs
to the airport agency.
“We have tried to accommodate
CDC’s initiative to develop the IE5 area even if it legally
belongs under the jurisdiction of the CIAC. We cannot, however,
sacrifice the future of DMIA as our country’s main international
airport for the sake of allowing CDC to generate quick cash,”
Cauguiran said.
Regional CBD
Meanwhile, Laus described the CBD
project as “something that would fit a regional CBD, combination
of malls, high rise hotels with casinos and financial centers” at
a meeting of the Metro Clark Advisory Council.
“Basically, it is a replication
of CBD of Metro Manila with additional elements of a regional CBD,”
Laus said.
Ernesto Gorospe, CDC
vice-president for business development, said the proceeds or
revenues from the project would be used to finance the establishment
of a low-cost carrier terminal at Clark.
However, Cauguiran said the CIAC
is in deep talks with foreign funding institutions interested at
bankrolling the development and modernization of DMIA and the entire
Clark Aviation Complex.
Cauguiran’s warning echoes
recent observations made by Socioeconomic Secretary Romulo Neri, the
on-leave director general of the National Economic and Development
Authority.
“The DMIA could lose its chance
of becoming the country’s premier international gateway if it
repeats the mistakes of the NAIA in allowing residential and
commercial interests to eat into and encroach on its area,” Neri
said.
The presence of high-rise
structures near DMIA’s runways will downgrade its international
rating to accommodate wide-bodied aircraft based on standards and
recommendations prescribed by the International Civil Aviation
Organization, Cauguiran added.
Twinkle Rodolfo, an airport and
logistics development expert at the University of Asia and the
Pacific, also warned that “security conscious countries will
desist from allowing their airlines and their citizens to fly into
airports that are clogged by structures near the runway or aviation
complex.”
This is why, according to Lazatin,
there is an urgent need for the CDC to reconsider its present
short-term development strategy anchored on a proposed CBD inside
Clark Freeport Zone.
“We need to preserve DMIA’s
land area in order to avoid the mistake of choking its development
and future as a main gateway like what happened with NAIA,”
Lazatin said.
To ensure the development of DMIA
and the entire aviation complex, Lazatin will file a bill before
Congress to call for complete autonomy of the CIAC from the CDC. The
CIAC is a subsidiary corporation of the CDC.
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