CLARK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT—A new airport terminal building with more than 100,000 square meters with an annual capacity for 8 million passengers broke ground here on Wednesday.
The new terminal building, located in the northeast portion of this 2,300-hectare civil aviation complex, is described as the first of the Duterte administration’s hybrid infrastructure projects under the “Build, Build, Build” program. A hybrid model means the government will build the infrastructure using its own funds and then the operations and maintenance will be bid out to the private sector.
Leading the groundbreaking rites were House Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez, former president and now Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Second District of Pampanga, Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade, Pampanga Gov. Lilia G. Pineda and Tarlac Gov. Susan A. Yap, Sens. Richard J. Gordon and Joseph Victor E. Ejercito and Bases Conversion Development Authority President and CEO Vivencio Dizon.
The hybrid project is considered the fastest to be implemented by the national government since its approval by the National Economic and Development Authority board in June.
Megawide-GMR won the bid to build the terminal after going through “a very stringent and transparent” bidding process monitored by the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank.
Megawide-GMR bested four other bidders for the design, engineering and construction of the new Clark airport terminal building.
On December 14 Megawide-GMR submitted the lowest financial proposal for the airport expansion project at P9.36 billion.
During his speech, Tugade noted there were heavy rains on Tuesday night, but good weather prevailed as soon as the sun came up in the morning, making it a beautiful day, which might well be the “blessing” bestowed on the new terminal building.
Tugade said efforts requesting to start the improvement and renovation of the Clark international airport only fell on deaf ears in the past. But now it gives new life to the plans and the desires of the Capampangans from all over Central Luzon to have a premier international gateway here.
Tugade added that no later than January 6, 2018, the government will mobilize to start the construction of the Tutuban to Malolos portion of the rail project and the entire stretch from Tutuban to Clark will be fully completed during the term of President Duterte. He said the rail project is tied to the full development of the Clark airport.
He also said that before the end of next year, the government will start making a reality the rail connectivity between Clark and Subic. The third project connected to the Clark airport is the so-called New Clark City in Tarlac, which will augur well the development and growth of the entire country.
The CIA is envisioned to be Asia’s next premier gateway and is expected to help decongest the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. It is one of the high-impact projects under the government’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program and compliments the Clark Freeport Zone, which is being developed as the next investment center in Asia.
Image credits: Ashley Manabat
2 comments
When has the Duterte Build, Build, Build program started?
This is definitely an engineering milestone! An airport terminal built with the flick of a finger.
Kudos to this writer for coming up with this modern fairy tale.
This is the one I like from Duterte administration, a Plan to decongest Metro Manila. By making Clark – San Fernando – Angeles a new Metro Clark with the same size as Metro Manila people from the old Manila will indeed migrate to the new city and will absolutely reduce the people in Manila and solving traffic problem. waste porblem, air pollution problem and crowd inflation effect. The new airport should not be only here but also business corporations, media companies and commercial outlets. Government can follow western strategy to give higher income savings to laborers, lower housing cost, more advance infrastructure, no traffic and more savings from institutions who will transfer here to attract people moving in this area.
But it should not stop in Clark, with a population of 100 million plus Filipinos, there should be ideally a 10 Metropolitan areas throughout the country, with their own business corporations, commercial zones, complete infrastructure like own International Airport, International Seaport, Media organization, Transportation Systems, Universities, Huge Hospitals and Entertainment Centers. With another 9 more Metro Cities in the Philippines, struggling people from Metro Manila will definitely consider moving out from the city.
Too much concentration in Manila might be the result of the Political system. House is fine as they represent population but Senate should be geographically distributed probably 2 senators from each region in order to give other areas in the country to be improved.