Terminal tales retold

“FROM ‘guarded pessimism’ to laudatory thanksgiving.”

So we wrote here last Tuesday of the mindshift of the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement over the news of President BS Aquino III finally approving Friday last week the allotment of P1.2 billion for a new French-designed modern airport passenger terminal at the Clark International Airport.

News reports further quoted Clark International Airport Corp. President-CEO Emigdio Tanjuatco III that the terms of reference for the project, which would cost a total of P15 billion when totally finished, are now being prepared for bidding.

And we quoted PGKM Chair Ruperto Cruz, thus: “Pasalamatan ta ya y PNoy pero most especially y Dino Tanjuatco kasi iya ing ikit tamung meg-lobby ken (Let us thank PNoy and most especially Dino Tanjuatco as we have seen how he lobbied for it."

The thanksgiving side of our lead paragraph is all there. So where’s the pessimism coming from? In the youthspeak of the moment, hugot pa more, from this piece published here only last May 8 and headlined:   

Terminal tales

CLARK AIRPORT advocates, rejoice!

Only last week, this most happy news:

MANILA, Philippines - The Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) is set to bid out the contract for the first phase of the P7.2 billion low cost carrier passenger terminal building at the Clark International Airport in Pampanga within the next two months.

CIAC President-CEO Emigdio Tanjuatco III said the first phase of the project worth P1.2 billion would be presented to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) for approval next week.

 “Once the President approves it, hopefully the bidding for the project will start by the middle of this year,” Tanjuatco said.

According to Tanjuatco, the project obtained the green light from the NEDA - Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) last week after being pushed by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

"The fact that the national government infused P1.2 Billion for airport improvement is an indication of the government’s support through the DOTC,” he said.

Tanjuatco said the proposed terminal building designed by the French firm Aeroport de Paris could accommodate 15 million passengers annually…

Foremost Clark airport pusher Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement ain’t even smiling though.  

“To see is to believe.” So declared the PGKM, making like Glum, the Lilliputian, with its “guarded pessimism” over Tanjuatco’s oh-so-hopeful fascination.

“We have a long history of announced biddings for the Clark terminal from the time of GMA going until now,” said PGKM Chair Ruperto Cruz. “All announcements, all coming to nothing. Now, can you blame us for being pessimistic?”

Indeed, the PGKM stands on solid ground where proclamations on the construction of the new Clark airport terminal get mired in shifting quicksand.

Consider the following seemingly slightly edited version of the above-cited news story: 

 MANILA, Philippines – Construction of the proposed P7.2-billion budget terminal at the Clark International Airport will likely start in the second quarter of 2014.

On the sidelines of the press conference for the inaugural Dubai-Clark flight of Emirates, Clark International Airport Corporation President-CEO Victor Jose Luciano said the terminal is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2016.

The terminal, he noted, will have a capacity of between 10 million and 15 million passengers.

He added the government may fund the project or place it under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program.

That was in October 2, 2013 yet. And Emirates, by May 2014, flew out of the Clark coop, er, loop, and has not since returned. 

Tanjuatco now. Luciano then. Same lines – same lies? – same CIAC character crafting fairy tales out of the Clark airport terminal. As these finds from previous pieces here show:

In September 2006, GMA presided over the laying of the time capsule for the construction of Terminal 2. It was announced then that the sum of P3 billion, to come from the Manila International Airport Authority, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., and the Bureau of Immigration, among other agencies will be allotted for the project.
…Luciano announced the $1.2 billion proposal from an ALMAL Investments Co., a subsidiary of the Kuwaiti mega developer M.A. Kharafi Projects, “to cover all civil components of the DMIA Terminals 1, 2 and 3 plus the adjacent 1,500 hectares in the aviation complex strictly following the CIAC original master plan.”
… CIAC press released that a group of major government-linked and private firms in Malaysia called Bristeel Overseas Ventures, Inc. (BOVI) offered to infuse at least $150 million in foreign direct investment to immediately undertake the much-needed expansion of the passenger terminal of the Clark International Airport.

…in a regular meeting on May 17, 2010, the CIAC Board “resolved to accept for detailed negotiations” the proposal of the Philco Aero Inc. on the Passenger Terminal 2 Development Project of the DMIA, as it was deemed “superior” to the BOVI proposal.
…Luciano – in January 2012 -- announced that “they” are pushing for the construction of a budget terminal that will handle about 10 million passengers a year at the CIA.
“The new facility, amounting to P12 billion, will take three years to complete and make (the CIA) the second largest airport in the country, next to Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport…This budget terminal is the kind of terminal that meets the requirements of our airport in Clark. Our terminal right now can only accommodate 2.5 million. So we need a budget terminal to effectively say that DMIA is the next budget airline airport of the country.” So Mr. Luciano said…

Too long in verbalization, ever short in realization. That’s the CIAC story on the Clark airport. Always has been.

P7.2- billion terminal in the offing? Believe, at your own delusion.  

xxxxx

WHY, the BS more than doubled what we deemed delusory!

Should I start singing You Can’t Lose a Broken Heart?  

“…Don’t say things in December (in my case May)
You’ll regret in June (September)

Weigh your remarks before you speak
Or you’ll be sorry soon
Don’t be erratic, be diplomatic
To keep your hearts in tune…”

A mindshift of my own now: From “guarded pessimism” I shared with the PGKM, to “cautious optimism” that is all mine. But remaining firmly grounded on the Doubting Thomas’ “to see is to believe.”

In the case of the Clark airport expansion project, to live to see it.