Clark International Airport gets P1-billion Landbank loan for upgrade

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Philippines – With the name of former President Diosdado Macapagal now relegated only to the passenger terminal, the rechristened Clark International Airport (CIA) here will get a P1 billion loan from the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) for upgrading works.

“I will sign the loan agreement on Feb. 21 and this loan manifests confidence in the progress now happening at the airport,” said Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) president and chief executive officer Victor Jose Luciano.

This, even as Luciano debunked speculations that the renaming of the 2,400 aviation complex under the CIAC was politically motivated.

“Pres. Aquino had nothing to do with it. It’s just that the (CIAC) board thought old name Clark is most pragmatic since the name has been known internationally through almost a century of its being a part of the US military base,” he explained in a press briefing here.

Luciano said no board resolution was needed for the shift to the name Clark since the board resolution done in 2000 that honored former President Diosdado Macapagal, father of detained ex-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo actually referred only to the terminal and not to the entire aviation complex.

“We are just refocusing the name of the complex since it was the name that was there from the start even after the terminal was named after Macapagal,” he added.

Luciano said that the P1 billion LBP loan is expected to help the CIA cope with the increasing number of passengers. “We are looking at a 10 million capacity per year,” he said, noting that the present terminal, which had undergone a series of expansions since the Americans officially abandoned Clark in 1992, can accommodate only about 2.5 million passengers annually.

Initially, however, a new “budget terminal” that could accommodate five million passengers annually is being eyed for completion in 2015. “It takes about three years for such a terminal to be finished,” Luciano noted.

Apart from foreigners landing here, the CIA is also capturing the potential market covering some 25 million residents of regions north of Metro Manila. “They don’t have to go to Manila to go abroad or reach other parts of the country,” Luciano said.

He also said he expected the CIA to process some 1.2 million passengers this year on the premise of even just 50 percent filled capacity of aircraft.

He said bidding for the terminal expansion project will be held on March 5 so that the project could be started by early next year.

“At present, Thailand is regarded by Europeans as their gateway to Asia. With more international and domestic flights coming into Clark, we can shift this perpective as Europeans would be interested to see what they have not yet seen here,” he said.

Foreigners landing at Clark would now be able to reach other tourism destinations in the country amid the slated regular daily flights of Air Philippines, AirAsia, SeaAir and Cebu Pacific to more destinations in the country.