Plan to put up 300-hectare CBD at Clark aviation complex hit

CLARK FREEPORT – A group, which fought hard to transform the Clark airport into a premier international gateway soon after the Americans abandoned this former US military base, is now again up in arms.

This time, the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) is opposing plans to earmark 300 hectares of the aviation area here into a “central business district (CBD).”

PGKM leaders said the CBD plan of the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) would derail the expansion of the airport – now called the Diosdado Macapagal Inter-national Airport – which is under the jurisdiction of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC).

Under the CDC proposal, 300 hectares at the so-called industrial estate 5 (IE-5) near the airport runway would be converted into a business district.

The Bases Conversion Development Authority recently came out with a resolution affirming that the 300-hectare site is within the jurisdiction of the CIAC, not the CDC.