MANILA, Philippines — Senator Lito Lapid has filed a bill seeking to rename Clark International Airport in Pampanga as the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.
Lapid’s Senate Bill No. 1861 seeks to honor the “achievement and legacy” of Macapagal, who is the first Kapampangan president.
“[I]t is only fitting that the Clark International Airport located in Clark Freeport Zone, Angeles City, Pampanga be renamed as the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport,” the bill’s explanatory note read.
Lapid, who also hails from Pampanga, said that some of the highlights of Macapagal’s presidency include the “suppression of graft and corruption, land-reform legislation, abolition of land tenancy, labor law reforms such as the minimum wage law, the campaign against Income tax evasion, and the strengthening of free enterprise.”
It was in 2003 when then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo renamed Clark International Airport as the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in honor of her father who passed away in 1997.
The airport’s name was renamed as the Clark International Airport in February 2012.
A similar bill to rename the airport as the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport was filed at the House of Representatives by Pampanga 3rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr. in 2019. The measure is still pending at the committee level.
It can be recalled that in June, presidential son and Deputy Speaker Paolo Duterte and two other lawmakers filed a measure seeking to rename NAIA to Paliparang Pandaigdig ng Pilipinas.
It was met with widespread criticism, with some lawmakers questioning the timing of the proposal to rename an airport amid a global pandemic.