Clark exec opposes Palace order

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga – Clark Development Corp. (CDC) president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Angeles urged President Arroyo yesterday to "reconsider" her recent executive order reviving the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) which will have jurisdiction over the 2,500-hectare airport complex here.

Executive Order 186, which the President signed last March 10, caught CDC and local government officials in Central Luzon by surprise.

"I will oppose it. I find it impractical," Angeles told reporters.

"It appears that the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport’s enhanced viability has become so attractive that covetous, vested interests are behind the move to take it away from CDC’s control and management," he said in a letter to the President.

The CDC and the CIAC were merged 11 days after Angeles was appointed CDC president on March 15, 200l, with the CDC as the surviving agency.

Angeles recalled that when he assumed the post, the CIAC had "dissipated" its P1.2-billion subsidy from the Bases Conversion Development Authority for capital and operational expenditures.

"With the CDC absorbing CIAC, it earned a net of P2.8 million in 2001 and P5.9 million in 2002," he said. This, in addition to the liquidation of some P80 million worth of obligations he had inherited from his CDC predecessors.

While EO 186 noted that the CDC-CIAC merger had "diminished the focus and priority of the development" of the Clark airport, Angeles cited EO 7 dated March 26, 2001, justifying the merger based on the observation that the two entities were observed "to be competing with each other and pursuing their policies and operations without coordination and, at times, in an inconsistent manner."