Clark conspiracies

“BUT WHY is Pamintuan silent? Is he part of what is called ‘Bedan conspiracy’ at Clark?”

Asked the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement of Angeles City Mayor Ed Pamintuan last week disturbed of hizzoner’s persistent silence in the wake of the city council’s resolutions “vehemently opposing” the Capilion project by the main gate of the Clark Freeport, and requesting Pampanga congressmen Yeng Guiao and Oca Rodriguez, along with the rest of the Central Luzon congressional bloc to initiate a House inquiry into the Capilion issue.

As quiet as Pamintuan’s official stand on the issue was his sub rosa arrangement with the Clark Development Corp. for a briefing on the Capilion project exclusive to the council majority immediately after the first resolution was passed. Albeit, its sponsor Max Sangil, a member of the majority, opting out of the briefing.

Uncharacteristic of the usually loquacious Pamintuan, his silence seen as implying not merely tacit consent but even conspiratorial engagement.      

But what, how, why a Bedan conspiracy? Basic one-plus-one-equals-two. Or, birds of a feather peck just the same.

Atty. Pamintuan is an alumnus of San Beda College. He co-chairs the Metro Clark Advisory Council composed of chief executives of the cities and municipalities contiguous to the Freeport.

CDC President-CEO Atty. Arthur P. Tugade prides himself as a Red Lion nurtured by the Benedictine fathers from his cub years out of the Tatalon urban jungle. He chairs the MCAC.

While there’s but one other publicly known Bedan in the CDC Board – Don Manolo Feliciano, also a lawyer – it really matters little in the scheme of things at CDC. What with Tugade being the majority of one.

Lest we forget, if only for numbers’ sake, there’s Mabalacat City Mayor Boking Morales, whose length of tenure as MCAC co-chair is rivalled only by his term in office. Yeah, Boking spent college at San Beda too.        

There, the PGKM seeing red in the Capilion project is as much idiomatic as emblematic.

Conspiracy theories have been a PGKM staple with regards to what the advocacy group cites as the lack of development at the Clark Freeport and the sabotage of the Clark International Airport.

There were the so-called Imperial Dragons of Manila that would not want their investments in the metropolis endangered by the development of the Clark airport as premier international gateway. Not even as an alternative to the congested NAIA.

There were the bosses of the Department of Transportation and Communications – from Mar Roxas to Joseph Emilio Abaya – themselves accused of conspiring with the mandarins of Imperial Manila, along with their local lackeys at the Clark International Airport Corp.     

Indeed, at one time or the other in its recent but already storied past, the Clark Freeport, the airport too, underwent management by some sort of a fraternity – not necessarily school-based, but always, per PGKM, conspiratorial .

It was the “Jaycees Clique” at the time of CDC President-CEO Atty. Emmanuel Y. Angeles and Executive Vice President Victor “Chichos” Luciano, so-called because of their loftiest stature in the civic organization: the former being a TOYM awardee, the latter winning the JC International presidency.

Applying that which the Jaycees Creed decreed “…economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise,” they opened the way to SM City Clark, putting finis to the city’s small retail enterprises.

Before Luciano’s luck won him the CIAC, it was a virtual military junta seated there, starting with the Air Force’s Romy David as both CDC and CIAC chief, onto – in varying posts – Gen. Tereso Isleta, one Col. Abad Santos, two or three others lost to fading memory, up to Gen. Adelberto Yap as CIAC top gun with Col. Pete Sanchez as chief of staff. 

And then there was Gen. Narciso Abaya, having held the post President-CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority.           

In the short-lived CDC presidency of Sergio Naguiat, said to have wielded real power – in brokering just about any transaction, from investments to the hiring of personnel – were the “KBL Boys,” so-called because of their political affiliation to the Great Ferdinand’s movement and their undying affection to Marcos’ foremost legal braintrust.  

Notwithstanding the disparity in the directions the freeport and airport were taken by these fraternities/cliques, the opposition mounted by the PGKM has remained constant.

Conceding though that it is this alleged cabal of Bedans that has brought the worst misery to Clark.