Clark builders vow completion of SEAG projects

CLARK, Pampanga, Philippines — Despite the budget constraints facing the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee, developers of New Clark City, which will serve as the main hub of this year’s SEA Games, have assured completion of the ambitious project.

“We have no choice. We will host the SEA Games or we might lose face,” said Phisgoc deputy director general and Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA)business development manager Arrey Perez yesterday.

“But there will be some sacrifices,” Perez told reporters here.

Perez assured that the main athletics and aquatics centers as well as the other infrastructures to be used in the SEA Games will be finished in time, despite a drastic cut in the overall budget for the country’s hosting of the Games.

From a high of P7.5 billion, which could host a SEA Games in the level of the Asian Games, the budget was slashed by the Senate to P5 billion. Phisgoc is now looking for other sources to fill the gaping hole in the budget.

“The (20,000-seat) stadium will be finished by June or July and deliverable to BCDA by October. Internally, we at (infrastructure developer) MTD have until Aug. 31 to finish everything,” said MTD Philippines president Patrick Nicholas David.

He said 52.3 percent of the overall project that covers New Clark City is finished – ahead of schedule since the ground-breaking in January last year.

“That’s for everything. We have 193 days left,” added David, who said that construction of the main athletics and aquatics venues for the SEA Games have been “very stringent.”

Clark in Pampanga and the New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac will serve as the main hub of this year’s SEA Games on Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

 For athletics alone, organizers are expecting 2,400 athletes from the 11 participating countries, and they are ready to accommodate them from start to finish.

The main athletics stadium in New Clark City will be the modern-day version of the one at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex in Manila, a sports site that was built in 1934.

“This will be the first major sports facility since the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex. It’s about time our national athletes are given access to world-class facilities,” added Perez in yesterday’s special session of the PSA forum.