Metro Clark development authority eyed

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines -– Urban development experts are pushing for the creation of the so-called Metro Clark Urban Development Planning Agency, a lawmaker said yesterday.

In a press briefing, Pampanga first district Rep. Joseller Guiao, said the proposal came amid warnings on the vulnerability of Metro Manila, which sits along the Marikina West Valley Fault, to earthquakes.

“The body we want to create would be similar to the Metro Manila Development Authority. It is unfortunate that MMDA did not exist before the problems in Metro Manila surfaced,” Guiao said.

He stressed the need to plan ahead for a Metropolitan Clark to avoid problems that is confronting Metro Manila due to lack of zoning requirements.

He also cited a recent study of the Worldwide Fund (WWF) for Nature identifying Angeles City, including Clark Freeport, as the “least vulnerable” to natural disasters among 12 cities included in the study.

In presenting the study here last year, WWF-Philippines vice chairman and chief executive officer Jose. Ma. Lorenzo Tan noted that Metro Manila “represents a concentrated risk,” as he called on the national government to decentralize the country’s capital and move to the provinces, including Clark.

Guiao said a growing number of sectors are taking this option, as shown by the plan of the Bases Conversion Development Authority to build a so-called Green City north of Clark, similar to The Fort in Taguig City.