CIAC scores CDC on plans to build business district near Clark airport

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga – The conflict between the state-owned Clark Development Corp. and its subsidiary Clark Internation Airport Corp. (CIAC) on the use of a 300-hectare site here has become an open word war.

CIAC executive vice president and chief operating officer Alexander Cauguiran has finally spoken up yesterday to lambast the CDC’s proposal to use the land for a “central business district” project. In a statement his office issued yesterday, Cauguiran said the CDC was a mere “quick cash” project that would derail plans to eventually convert the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) here into the country’s main world-class airport.

“The bigger issue is not who owns or who has jurisdiction over the CDC area but the project’s adverse impact to our long-term plan of positioning the DMIA as the future international aiport of the country,” Cauguiran said. He noted that the “proposed location of the controversial CDC is known as Industrial Estate 5 (IE5) immediately adjacent to DMIA’s twin runways built by the Americans during Clark’s heydays as a US military installation”.

Cauguiran also noted that through Resolution No. 98-07-67 approved in July 1998, the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) identified IE 5 as within the 2,500-hectare area within the jurisdiction of the CIAC, and not the CDC which also covers another 2,500 hectares here.