When the fish float

"APECTADU ING cabyayan mi quening danuman. Mengamate la reng asan pauli ning polusyun menibat careng factory qng babo, at ngeni icami ing magcasaquit (Our livelihood in the waterways is affected. The fishes were killed due to pollution caused by factories from upstream and now we are the ones suffering)." 

The lamentation of former Masantol vice mayor Marcelo “Bajun” Lacap, Jr. just resurrected the abomination that plagued southern Pampanga in the last three decades of the 1900s – industrial pollution that veritably killed all life downstream the Pampanga River.

For most of the 2000s under the anti-pollution radar, the Far Eastern Alcohol Corp. (Feaco) in Apalit town suddenly blipped with a vengeance last Sept. 19 – spewing its effluents into the river, wreaking havoc on both the fishing grounds of sustenance fisherfolk and the commercial fishponds of Macabebe and Masantol towns that comprise the backbone of the local economy.

Feaco was, in fact, the lesser of the Apalit-based twin evils that wrought the degradation of the Pampanga River culminating in the 1990s. The greater, aye, worst than worse scourge was the Central Fermentation and Industrial Corp. (CFIC) which was more than triple the size of Feaco, and therefore, more than three times in the volume of untreated industrial wastes it routinely drained into the Pampanga River.

CFIC’s reported connection with the powers-that-were at the time – one of the owners allegedly bestowed a foreign posting in the Cory Aquino government; CFIC sourcing its raw materials, read: molasses, from Hacienda Luisita – made it virtually invincible to any, and all, attempts to make it pay for the devastation it caused on the marine life and the livelihood of those dependent on it in that part of Pampanga, and to an extent, Bulacan, principally, Calumpit and Hagonoy towns.

Orders for suspension of operations went CFIC’s way, to be fair to the local government of Apalit and the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources. Only, just as fast, if not faster, the CFIC went on its polluting way.

It was in 1996, that the DENR Region 3 office, reinvigorated by Director Ricardo V. Serrano, pursued a relentless campaign against CFIC winning a court order for its closure.

Independence Day, 1997 – Serrano and Central Luzon Police director Chief Supt. Edgardo Aglipay led a posse comprising local government executives of Pampanga and Bulacan, NGOs, farmers, fishermen and the media in padlocking and sealing the CFIC plant to stop all its operations.

But CFIC did not go down without a fight. On that very day of its closure, Philippine Star’s Ding Cervantes was nearly made a martyr – a shotgun blast from an allegedly sleepy CFIC security guard planted a bolitas in the intrepid newsman, but not where it was supposed to be most efficacious. To this day, Ding keeps the pellet in his body.

CFIC waged a legal battle that ultimately led to its demise. It permanently shut down, its plant completely dismantled a little over a year it was padlocked – in some twist of fate, a few days after its nemesis – Director Ricardo V. Serrano – was killed in a daylight ambush along a busy intersection in Quezon City.

In all appearances now, Feaco has taken up where CFIC left off, and how!                    

"Pepalinis at pepacutcut da nala deng aliwang mequa qng sacup ning Masantol pero atin pamu rin mitatagan at ngeni mebantut ne ing ilog (We have cleaned that portion of the river within the boundary of Masantol and buried the dead fish collected there. But there were still a few left. The river now stinks)," said Lacap.

This, even as Masantol Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office  chief Jess Manansala clarified that the supposed "fish kill" is not yet confirmed, pending results of studies conducted by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. He added that Feaco management has already coordinated with his office to address the problem.  

For its part, the Apalit LGU immediately issued a 30-day cease-and-desist order on Feaco as “just an initial action.”

Said municipal administrator Glenn Danting: "It does not mean that after 30 days, it will automatically be lifted. Other terms and possible intervention will be discussed in the municipal council session on Tuesday."

On Thursday, it was reported that the LGU was mulling an extension to the CDO with Mayor Peter Nucom quoted by Sun-Star Pampanga as saying: "Hindi lang one month, actually hindi ko talaga masabi pero at least three or four months pa. Ang kailangan kasi dito ay rehabilitation. Hangga't hindi ma-clear ang mga machines nila, wala silang permit. Para masiguro din natin na hindi na mauulit ito (Not just one month, I cannot really say but at least three to four months for the neded rehabilitation. Until their machines are cleaned, they will not be given permit (to operate). If only to make sure this incident will not happen again)." Nucom also enjoined Feaco to make a public apology to the people of Macabebe and Masantol towns.


Indeed, exigencies are called for here. The adverse impact of Feaco’s effluents is as sudden as long-term on the environmental state of the river and the livelihood of the communities depending on it.  

As Lacap put it poignantly: "Maluat a panaun para macapangabyayan caming manasan qing cailugan pasibayu. Anggang ela pa ma-replenish ding mengamate asan, ala caming asahan a cabyayan (It will take long before we can go fishing again. Until the river is replenished with new stock, we cannot hope for a return to our livelihood).”

And yes, amid this crisis at hand, where’s the DENR, particularly its Environmental Management Bureau?

   

When the fish float

"APECTADU ING cabyayan mi quening danuman. Mengamate la reng asan pauli ning polusyun menibat careng factory qng babo, at ngeni icami ing magcasaquit (Our livelihood in the waterways is affected. The fishes were killed due to pollution caused by factories from upstream and now we are the ones suffering)." 

The lamentation of former Masantol vice mayor Marcelo “Bajun” Lacap, Jr. just resurrected the abomination that plagued southern Pampanga in the last three decades of the 1900s – industrial pollution that veritably killed all life downstream the Pampanga River.

For most of the 2000s under the anti-pollution radar, the Far Eastern Alcohol Corp. (Feaco) in Apalit town suddenly blipped with a vengeance last Sept. 19 – spewing its effluents into the river, wreaking havoc on both the fishing grounds of sustenance fisherfolk and the commercial fishponds of Macabebe and Masantol towns that comprise the backbone of the local economy.

Feaco was, in fact, the lesser of the Apalit-based twin evils that wrought the degradation of the Pampanga River culminating in the 1990s. The greater, aye, worst than worse scourge was the Central Fermentation and Industrial Corp. (CFIC) which was more than triple the size of Feaco, and therefore, more than three times in the volume of untreated industrial wastes it routinely drained into the Pampanga River.

CFIC’s reported connection with the powers-that-were at the time – one of the owners allegedly bestowed a foreign posting in the Cory Aquino government; CFIC sourcing its raw materials, read: molasses, from Hacienda Luisita – made it virtually invincible to any, and all, attempts to make it pay for the devastation it caused on the marine life and the livelihood of those dependent on it in that part of Pampanga, and to an extent, Bulacan, principally, Calumpit and Hagonoy towns.

Orders for suspension of operations went CFIC’s way, to be fair to the local government of Apalit and the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources. Only, just as fast, if not faster, the CFIC went on its polluting way.

It was in 1996, that the DENR Region 3 office, reinvigorated by Director Ricardo V. Serrano, pursued a relentless campaign against CFIC winning a court order for its closure.

Independence Day, 1997 – Serrano and Central Luzon Police director Chief Supt. Edgardo Aglipay led a posse comprising local government executives of Pampanga and Bulacan, NGOs, farmers, fishermen and the media in padlocking and sealing the CFIC plant to stop all its operations.

But CFIC did not go down without a fight. On that very day of its closure, Philippine Star’s Ding Cervantes was nearly made a martyr – a shotgun blast from an allegedly sleepy CFIC security guard planted a bolitas in the intrepid newsman, but not where it was supposed to be most efficacious. To this day, Ding keeps the pellet in his body.

CFIC waged a legal battle that ultimately led to its demise. It permanently shut down, its plant completely dismantled a little over a year it was padlocked – in some twist of fate, a few days after its nemesis – Director Ricardo V. Serrano – was killed in a daylight ambush along a busy intersection in Quezon City.

In all appearances now, Feaco has taken up where CFIC left off, and how!                   

"Pepalinis at pepacutcut da nala deng aliwang mequa qng sacup ning Masantol pero atin pamu rin mitatagan at ngeni mebantut ne ing ilog (We have cleaned that portion of the river within the boundary of Masantol and buried the dead fish collected there. But there were still a few left. The river now stinks)," said Lacap.

This, even as Masantol Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office  chief Jess Manansala clarified that the supposed "fish kill" is not yet confirmed, pending results of studies conducted by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. He added that Feaco management has already coordinated with his office to address the problem.  

For its part, the Apalit LGU has issued a 30-day suspension order on Feaco as “just an initial action.”

Said municipal administrator Glenn Danting: "It does not mean that after 30 days, it will automatically be lifted. Other terms and possible intervention will be discussed in the municipal council session on Tuesday."

That Tuesday has passed and we have yet to hear what transcribed in the council session, what courses of actions have been laid out. Exigencies are called for here. The adverse impact of Feaco’s effluents is as sudden as long-term on the environmental state of the river and the livelihood of the communities depending on it.  

As Lacap put it poignantly: "Maluat a panaun para macapangabyayan caming manasan qing cailugan pasibayu. Anggang ela pa ma-replenish ding mengamate asan, ala caming asahan a cabyayan  (It will take long before we can go fishing again. Until the river is replenished with new stock, we cannot hope for a return to our livelihood).”

And yes, amid this crisis at hand, where’s the DENR, particularly its Environmental Management Bureau?

   

Garbo!

HIS OWN brand of local governance.

That’s what his constituency speaks lately of Mabalacat City Mayor Crisostomo C. Garbo. To their most pleasant surprise, given their cynicism over Garbo’s over-propagandized incapacity to effect anything good for the city.

Yeah, deeply imprinted in the local consciousness are those election campaign blurbs of the city pawned under Mayor Boking, but altogether sold with a Mayor Garbo.

No, Garbo did not do a Boy Sisi, did not engage in the blame game, after taking over city hall, as is the wont of the traditional politician.

He did not cry of depleted local coffers, even as he initiated some quiet investigations over questionable programs and projects undertaken by the previous administration.

What Garbo initiated is some judicious fiscal management to make the city funds more responsive to the needs of the constituents.

Inspired by his medical degree, Garbo took the health of the Mabalacqueno as priority, effecting the allotment of P15 million for medical assistance and another P15 million for the city’s central pharmacy.

Dignity in death for even the poorest of the poor of the city he warranted with P10 million in burial assistance.

And then, there is the sustained feeding program in public schools to end malnutrition among children coming from indigent families. First beneficiaries were 2,488 school children in Mauaque Maragul Elementary School and Mawaque Resettlement Elementary School provided with supplemental feeding sponsored by the local government unit.

With the provincial health office, Garbo spearheaded the topical fluoride application for the students of Dau Elementary School.

Most recently, Garbo vowed P1 million for each of Mabalacat City’s 27 barangays as “cultural fund.”  This, for “barangay activities related to Filipino customs and traditions.”

Garbo took notice of the “tradition” of solicitation letters from barangays, puroks, and just about every street corner inundating the offices of the mayor, the vice mayor and the councilors for the Holy Week “Pabasa” (the reading of Christ’s Pasyon) which account for a big drain of the officials’ personal funds.

Same as the summer basketball leagues in the barangays, where not only the cost of the games – officiating, timers, announcers, statisticians – but even the uniforms and shoes are solicited from local officials.

The cultural fund is seen as a big help in that direction.

As to the city’s – and just about every urban area’s – traffic congestion problem, Garbo said the strict enforcement of traffic laws by a “re-energized” traffic management group is now in full force. Also, traffic barriers have been put in place to prevent motorists and pedestrians from turning or crossing wherever they wished, causing traffic jams and gridlocks.

On the long term, the city has engaged in initial talks with the Clark Development Corp. and the University of the Philippines’ National Center for Transportation Studies Foundation Inc. with the end in view of an in-depth study of the traffic situation in the city with corresponding plan of action.

By no means are the city’s problems getting their final solutions. Rome, as has long been cliched, was not built in one day.

But, at the rate Garbo is doing his job as hizzoner – he has yet to make his first 100 days in office – he is well on his way.

Again, to the most pleasant surprise of his constituents. And to the incredulity of those who disparaged him in the past.      

Go Garbo!              

Surviving college under martial law

CLASSES HAVE resumed.

Possessed with a clearance from the Philippine Constabulary (PC) – but only after the ritual romanza militar ­-- and remanded to the care of the good Apu Ceto, rector of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary, the activist also known as “Carlos” is readmitted to the Assumption College in San Fernando. Only to find a whole new world totally alien from the bastion of academic freedom the Catholic school once prided itself to be.

For one, the ROTC – Reserved Officers Training Course – taken all too lightly for a “real” course, if at all, assumed premiership. Where, in one semester, I earned three-unit credits for “special assignment” read: janitorial work at the commandant’s office in plain school uniform, I now had to wear military fatigues and required to salute every officer I meet on campus. Not to mention undergoing all those drills and marches with a heavy Garand M-1 on my shoulder.

Campus militarization finds coupling with ideological re-orientation with the institutionalization of the Bagong Lipunan hymn as second to the Lupang Hinirang in flag rites. Aye, the former even assumed some precedence what with it being required even during classes.

And yes, you can pass ROTC only if you can sing it from memory:

May bagong silang, may bago nang buhay

Bagong bansa, bagong galaw

Sa Bagong Lipunan…  

Magbabago ang lahat, tungo sa pag-unlad

At ating itanghal, Bagong Lipunan.

Ang gabi'y nagmaliw nang ganap 
At lumipas na ang magdamag 
Madaling araw ay nagdiriwang 
May umagang namasdan
Ngumiti ang pag-asa 
Sa umagang anong ganda! 
May bagong silang…

Which meaning we – silently, but of course – totally bastardized by merely supplanting the letter B with the letter G in the lyrics, thus:

May gagong silang, may gago nang buhay

Gagong bansa, gagong galaw

Sa gagong lipunan…

Mag-gagago ang lahat…

Aye, there was some fun even in those the most terrifying of times.

For us who were remanded to the custody of persons of authority or influence, the PC required that we reported to the provincial command weekly for the first three months, fortnightly for another three months and then monthly until they told us we were “cleared.”

The reporting covered our activities – classes in school, church service, movies, visits, etc., and – more important to the military – persons we met. Of course, these comprised mostly of classmates and teachers.

Talk of quality education!               

Our Rizal Class, where the national hero’s counter-revolutionary leanings vis-à-vis the “correctness” of the “real national hero” Bonifacio’s proletarian revolution made the pith of the discussions, were reduced to the absurdity of debates on who Rizal loved more, Leonor Rivera or Josephine Bracken?

Alas, AB Political Science was unceremoniously abolished, prompting me to shift to AB-English where my Essay Writing class consisted mainly of paeans to Ferdinand the Great and Imelda the Beautiful.  

The semester following the Proclamation 1081 found me taking the editorship of the school paper Regina, to the utter dismay and the greatest sorrow of the college administration.

Expressly forbidden to comment on anything but the good and beautiful about the New Society – the Department of Public Information and the PC seeing to it that we toed the line – our anti-Establishment angst had to be ventilated somewhat.

So, we found in the college president, the vice presidents, the registrar, the deans and professors alternative targets.

I cannot recall now which I frequented more, the office of the college president – where I was made to explain every article in the paper deemed critical of the college administration, or the Home Defense Unit of the Philippine Constabulary – where, with our moderator – Ms. June Velez-Belmonte – I had to present the blueprints of the paper before taking it to the printing press for a thorough review by military censors of all the articles, pictures or illustrations, blacking out any that could even be remotely considered “subversive.”

Yeah, we had issues with blacked out sections.      

Cry press freedom? We just cried.

No tears to still shed though, on this the 45^th anniversary of Marcos’ martial law. Only the resolve to fight that it never happened again. 

Nunquam iterum!    

Day of faith

LIKE THE recurring refrain of a mournful song that long ago seared the very soul, the events of September 23, 1972 come as painfully, albeit less terrifyingly, fresh at each anniversary.

So, indulge me in reliving once more that day of days of 45 long years ago through this piece I found the courage to write but five years back.

A SATURDAY. Up early for a “DG” – discussion group – at the Assumption College in San Fernando.

Something uncanny: there is nothing but pure static on the radio. The usual though – light banter, small-town gossip among passengers – at the jeepney from somnolent Poblacion, Sto. Tomas to the capital town.

Something really uncanny: there are no newspapers at the news stands. Only komiks are being hawked by ambulant newsboys.

At the Assumption bus, some sense of gloom, a foreboding of doom, guarded whispers among us students of something terrifying…

On campus, a disturbing quietude. Still some two dozen hardcore KM-SDK activists go on with the DG originally to finalize the agenda of the demo at the gates of Camp Olivas planned for Tuesday.

Marcos has declared Martial Law. First heard from a kasama with a brother in the military. The PC – Philippine Constabulary – has been rounding known activists since last night. Not even a murmur of Makibaka, Huwag Matakot! heard.

Just then, a platoon of uniformed constables enters the campus. Enough for all of us to find any and all means out of Assumption except the main gate where, we presumed more PCs are posted, maybe even with machineguns.

Downtown San Fernando, in front of the town hall were 6X6 PC trucks, military fatigues are everywhere. Long hair is sheared not by scissors but mostly by bayonets and hunting knives.

Jumped on a passing jeepney, just in time. My long tresses – down to my shoulders and back – saved for the day.

Proclamation 1081 – declaring Martial Law in the Philippines though dated September 21, 1972 came into the open on September 23.       

Martial Law! The news is out – even in barriotic Sto. Tomas. Arriving home, in time to see my mom stoking the last flames flickering on a mound of ash that used to be my beloved Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, Lenin’s thoughts in volumes of pamphlets, Mao’s The Five Golden Rays and the Little Red Book, Amado Guerrero’s Lipunan at Rebolusyong Pilipino, posters of Che Guevara, Marx, Lenin and Mao.

In between tears, a jumble of Marx-Lenin-Mao thoughts – The history of all hitherto existing society is a history of class struggle… Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks…The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation…Trust the masses, rely on the masses, learn from the masses…The people, and the people alone, are the motive forces of history…

And Che’s mind too: What do the danger and sacrifices of a man or a nation matter, when the destiny of humanity is at stake?

All gone in holocaust!
An early morning date with the neighbourhood barber the next day. After a long while, the sun burns my ears and nape again.

Lie low, really low. Take refuge in the rice paddies. In morbid fear of what tomorrow may bring.  

So what hath Martial Law immediately wrought?

Resumption of classes. By the main gate of Assumption College the dreaded Black List is posted – names of activists who will not be re-admitted unless with clearance from the PC commander.

A piece of advice from my political science professor: “Don’t go to the PC alone, they will just arrest and detain you, as they did to a number of your comrades. Bring somebody influential with you.”

So, whom am I to seek but my spiritual director and rector at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary – the Rev. Fr. Paciano B. Aniceto. (I was not even a year out “on probation” from San Jose Seminary.)

At the Pampanga PC Command beside the Capitol, Apu Ceto vouched for me as a character witness before a panel of interrogators, and then took my case to the provincial commander himself – the dreaded Col. Isidoro de Guzman who would later earn infamy in the Escalante Massacre in Negros.

Alone at the interrogation room, I was subjected to romanza military at my every answer the berdugos did not take to their liking.

“KM o SDK?”

Wala po – A smack on the head.

“Name? Alias?”

Caesar Lacson y Zapata. Nickname: Bong. No alias – A slap on the face.

“Ikaw si Carlos. Di ba ikaw itong nasa mga letrato (shoving to my face a number of photographs of marches, rallies and demos)”

Kamukha ko po – the table suddenly kisses my face.

Then off to the detention center at the side of the command. At each single cell, the sergeant – Pascua or Pascual? – shoves my face between the iron bars and asks the detainee: “Kasama mo ito?” and then turns to me: “Kilala mo yan?”

Of course, we knew one another but no one ratted out. Conscientization most manifest there.

Contusions and all, I managed to be remanded to the custody of Apu Ceto. I have written this and I write it again: The good father, in what could only be deemed as a leap of faith – in his God unquestionably, in me too, maybe – signed a document that said in part, “…in the event that subject activist-provocateur renew his connection with the Communist Party of the Philippines and its various fronts in the pursuit of rebellion; or undertake acts inimical to peace and order, or in gross violation of the provisions of Proclamation 1081 and other pertinent decrees, the signatory-custodian shall be held responsible and as liable…” with a proviso that in my stead, he would be placed in the PC stockade.
Did he tell me to change my ways? Did he impale in my conscience the gravity of my case, his implication in any instance of carelessness or recidivism on my part thereon?
No. From the Constabulary command, his mere request was for me to please accompany him to church.
Before the Blessed Sacrament, he knelt and silently prayed. He did not even ask me to pray with him. He just motioned me to sit near him.
By the side of the good father, in that darkened corner of the Metropolitan Cathedral, I wept. Washed by a torrent of tears was my rebirth, the renewal of my faith.
No spectacular drama presaged my epiphany, no blinding light, so to speak, shone on my own Damascus Gate. There were but flickering votives. And Apu Ceto.     

My return to faith. That’s principally what Martial Law wrought.

Delivering on Clark

“THE ICING of the cake in Clark is the airport. Yung airport ho tapos na yung pre-bid conference. Ibi-bidding na po yan by the end of this year. Hopefully, construction will start at the latest at the last quarter of next year and by 2020 to 2021, you in Clark and Pampanga can have our new airport with the new terminal, modern and world-class.”

So, declared Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade last week at the launch of the Clark-NAIA point-to-point service of Genesis Transport Inc.  

A complement to the Clark airport development, as well as a mega infra project on its own, Tugade furthered, is the construction of the railway from Tutuban in Manila to Malolos, Bulacan eventually connecting to Clark.

Enthused he: “Ibig lang sabihin, kapag naumpisahan natin ang Tutuban-Malolos, tuloy-tuloy na po yan hanggang San Fernando, Angeles at Clark. Gusto ho natin tapusin yan sa tatlong taon.”   

So uncharacteristic of his brusko past as president-CEO of the Clark Development Corp., Tugade appealed to the people for prayers: “Dapat ho ay ipagdasal n’yo kami upang ‘yung issues na masalimuot kagaya ng legal at right of way ay aming matugunan upang yung pangarap hindi lang po ng Pampanga kundi ng buong kapuluan ay mabigyan ng kasagutan.”

And, for nothing less than their total support: “We need your help. We need your support. We need your understanding. Huwag niyo po kaming tapunan ng batikos at alinlangan. Ibigay niyo ang kamay ninyo na makikiisa at gagabay sa amin upang ang mga proyekto dito sa Central Luzon at higit sa lahat sa Clark ay mabigyan realidad.”

If only for the certainty of Tugade’s conviction, if only for his recognition of the need for all stakeholders at Clark, particularly the ordinary folk, to be one with this enterprise, we must turn en masse to rally alongside him, behind the Duterte administration’s bid to make Clark development happen, at last.

And thereby right the wrongs impacted upon Clark by – of all people – the two most recent presidents of the Republic who happened to be Capampangans.

Precisely then, if only for our Clark (non)experience with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and BS Aquino III, the most I – and not a few others – can extend Tugade’s proclamation at this point is guarded, if prayerful, optimism.

It does not take overnight to unburden us long time Clark advocates of the unguarded pessimism calcified through the years of high promises by the national government for Clark development invariably coming undelivered.        

Terminal delirium, I have come to write time and again here of these epic fails by both GMA and the BS to make good on their express policies to exploit the full potentials of Clark as a premier international gateway for the Philippines.

In September 2006, GMA presided over the laying of the time capsule for the construction of Clark’s 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.
It was all press release.

Next came 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.”
It was even bruited about that GMA herself and top honchos of the Clark International Airport Corp,, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority and Cabinet members hid off to the Middle Eastern kingdom to seal the deal.

It was no deal.

Then came a group of major government-linked and private firms in Malaysia called Bristeel Overseas Ventures, Inc. (BOVI) reportedly offering 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.

The BOVI that appeared in Google searches was a manufacturer of galvanized iron sheets.

So, it was publicised that 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.

That was the first and last thing heard of the Philco Aero.

Then in January 2012 CIAC announced that “they” were pushing for the construction of a budget terminal that will handle about 10 million passengers a year at the Clark airport.
“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, declared CIAC president-CEO Victor Jose Luciano.

Then in In February 2012, CIAC signed a P1-billion loan facility with Land Bank of the Philippines precisely to jumpstart the terminal construction.

As we all have come to witness, nothing verbalized about the Clark airport has ever been realized. 

Comes now Tugade’s push, push, push for a world-class Clark airport by 2021.

The prospect of the Davao Mayor delivering where the two Capampangan presidents miserably failed – it is well worth our prayers, and total support.

And make us all believers as much in Duterte as in Tugade. Here’s keeping our fingers crossed.