Clark as PH’s premier airport not even planned, says Aquino

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—President Benigno Aquino said the national government has no plan yet to make Clark International Airport (CIA) in Pampanga the country’s new international gateway due to the absence of a high-speed train connecting Clark Freeport to Metro Manila.

“A plan is not yet set on whether or not we are moving to Clark [as the new international gateway],” Mr. Aquino said.

He spoke to reporters after presiding over the induction of 1,000 Liberal Party leaders in the province on Friday.

One major concern for government is the 80-kilometer distance of CIA from Metro Manila, which, Mr. Aquino said, is longer than the 40-km standard enforced on airports of many countries.

Without a high-speed train, he said it would be difficult to convince passengers to travel three to four hours to CIA.

Located north of this Pampanga capital, CIA is accessible via the North Luzon Expressway or the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.

Building a high-speed train to Clark would be expensive, Mr. Aquino said.

The advantage of CIA, he said, is that it could accommodate larger aircraft when a third runway is added to the facility. The first two runways, built by the United States Air Force, were rehabilitated by the Philippine government after the eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991.

Mr. Aquino defended his executive order transferring the supervision of Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) from the Bases Conversion and Development Authority to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) in January 2012.

He said the organizational change did not add to red tape, but to unified decision-making on airport-related matters as well as on fulfilling the target of drawing 10-million tourists by 2016.

“It is right to place the CIAC in the DOTC,” he said. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon