Vindication

AS the Airbus-380 – the world’s largest passenger aircraft – touched down at the runway of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport a little past noon Friday, I saw a tear or two ran down the cheeks of Alexander Cauguiran, executive vice president of the Clark International Airport Corp.
The emotion of the moment I understood, and shared in too. It was a vindication of the long, strenuous struggle the once militant activist at the vanguard of Move Clark Now! pursued to attain that very moment.
It was a vindication too of the purity of the cause embraced and fought for by another man, characteristically absent in the euphoria of its fulfillment – Ruperto Cruz, chair of the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement.
The PGKM and MCN were the twin battering rams that shook the ramparts of Imperial Manila’s obstinacy to let the Clark airport be – as landing site for migratory birds, and in the off-migration season, a training area for single-engines and ultra-lights.
The PGKM and MCN not only spearheaded massive rallies at the very gates of Clark for the “full operationalization of the airport” but also conducted various fora to mobilize support for the cause of the Clark airport.
Yes, they too marched to Mendiola and brought to Malacanang the people’s petition for the airport.
And woe unto those that blocked their way: court cases were filed against them, and in the case of the then Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez of the Department of Transportation and Communication, an opposition to his confirmation at the Senate’s Committee on Appointments. Until, he relented and admitted that the Philippine International Airport Corp. deal on Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport would negate all the potentials and opportunities in Clark as premier international airport of the country.
The Piatco was by no means spared by PGKM and MCN from the legal loop. Long before the outcry that ultimately went all the way to the Supreme Court, the two advocates of the Clark airport already filed cases in court against Piatco.
There was absolutely nothing that involved the Clark airport that PGKM and MCN did not touch on, close watchdogs as they were of what they deemed as prized jewel of the region .
Thus, credit is rightly due the PGKM and MCN – Perto and Alex, prominently – for all these developments at the DMIA. As it is also due the very professional and able Jose Victor “Chichos” Luciano, CIAC’s president and CEO.
As I enjoyed the hoopla of that Friday moment, I could not help but get sickened too at the sight of the usual quislings and “credit-rustlers” who strode like peacocks at the centerstage of the event, as though they were the very cause of it all. They who, at the height of the struggle for the Clark airport, were either at the sidelines jeering PGKM and MCN, or slavishly paying obeisance to the Manila dragons, in exchange for some pittance for their private businesses.
Indeed, where were these self-proclaimed advocates and business champions when PGKM and MCN were shouting their collective voices hoarse in some wilderness of indifference?
Napun, ngeni’t kapilan man, karing mapanako damulag ala nang muna pa king ka-animalan.
Theirs is a shamelessness that knows no bounds.
(Zona Libre/Punto! Oct. 15,2007)