(Un)tenable tenacity
Zona Libre/Bong Z. Lacson
(Un)tenable tenacity
NEITHER TELENOVELA nor reality show ala Donald Trump’s The Apprentice can approximate the current corporate drama at the boardroom and the work premises of the Clark International Airport Corp. with Kuwait and Egypt at the sidelines.
Yeah, the movie in my mind that can easily relate to l’affaire CIAC is Wall Street which won an Oscar Best Actor for Michael Douglas in his performance as the supremely amoral corporate magnate Gordon Gecko.
“Greed is good” – more than his corporate philosophy, that was Gecko’s article of faith.
So CIAC board chairman Nestor Mangio – renowned architect, developer of uppity Lakeshore, and papal awardee – is being put to task for what has been dubbed as his “untenable but obstinate tenacity” in pushing for the Kuwaiti firm Al Mal to handle the terminal(s) project at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.
A move described as a virtual sell-out not only of the whole of Clark’s civil aviation complex but of the national patrimony, if not the national sovereignty.
Disclosed CIAC executive vice president Alexander Cauguiran: “The plan was to bid out only the construction of a Terminal 2 at the DMIA. Al Mal wanted to take over the existing Terminal 1 apart from constructing a second and third terminals and control over 1,500 hectares of the 2,500-hectare civil aviation complex.”
On top of that, Cauguiran said Al Mal demanded that no premiere airport be operated within 150-kilometer radius of the DMIA for 45 years, extendable for another 25 years.
“This would deprive other provinces the same chance to host a premiere airport that we fought for before DMIA was developed,” so noted Cauguiran, referring to the advocacy for the development of the Clark Airport espoused by his group Move Clark Now and the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement of Pert Cruz.
Anyone with any rudiment in home economics would see the hand of Gordon Gecko in the Al Mal proposal.
Hence, it was junked in December 2008. It was later revived after the CIAC failed in its initial bidding for the project. Aside from Al Mal, the other pending proposals for the construction of a second passenger terminal are a Malaysian consortium with partners from the United States and the Middle East, and a South Korean consortium with local partners.
Despite Mangio saying in December 2009 that the CIAC board has found the Al Mal proposal “acceptable,” the same junked it in its meeting at Club Filipino on Feb. 16, “for being grossly disadvantageous to the government.”
The Office of Government Corporate Counsel has also been cited as finding certain provisions in the Al Mal proposal as “patently illegal.”
Why then is Mangio seemingly going overboard in his espousal of Al Mal?
“Personally, I am quite convinced that Al Mal is the best contractor for the development of the DMIA…We have been looking for a contractor for the past two years and all, except Al Mal, failed in financial capability.” So was Mangio quoted as telling this paper’s Ding Cervantes in an interview, “pointing out that M.A. Kharafi and Sons, Al Mal’s mother company, has been listed by Fortune Magazine as among the world’s richest.”
Au contraire, cried Max Sangil, former CIAC director and current director of the Bases Conversion Development Authority.
Sangil goes on record that he was the most vocal in the CIAC board in his objection to the Al Mal proposal, “for sheer common sense if not for government and country.”
To Sangil, it was Mangio’s insistence on Al Mal that the construction of Terminal 2 was delayed: “The timetable was disrupted.”
“The opportunities lost with that total focusing on Al Mal are immense to say the least. Terminal 2 would have been a legacy project of the President not only for the people of Pampanga but of Central and Northern Luzon.” So Sangil lamented.
“If he has any remaining delicadeza in his bones, Mangio should quit pronto,” Sangil said, especially given the fact that the President herself has ordered the junking of the Kuwaiti proposal.
With cost-benefit ratio in his mindset, Sangil pointed to the “drain in economic resources the CIAC suffered in evaluating and negotiating with Al Mal.”
“Easily several millions of government money were spent in the many travels of Mangio and the CIAC directors and staff to Kuwait,” Sangil revealed. “What with business class tickets, $300 per day allowances, and other perks.”
“At every special board meeting on the Al Mal proposal, the directors also earned P9,000 each,” he added.
Now, now, truly interesting to see the Commission on Audit report on all these comings and goings, dinings and flying, at CIAC where the Al Mal proposal is concerned.
But Mangio could not be denied a counterpunch on Sangil.
He made his own revelation that Sangil has been blaming him for his removal as member of the CIAC board last December.
“I had no control over rules and regulations. There is a prescription against one person being member of both the boards of CIAC and BCDA. Later I found out the President had signed the appointment of Raffy Angeles as his replacement in the CIAC board,” Mangio explained in Cervantes’ story here Wednesday.
And then a jaw-dropping uppercut: Mangio said that Sangil had worked for his appointment to the BCDA board since directorship in such board is not co-terminus with the term of President Arroyo.
So will Sangil just allow himself to be Mangio’s punching bag?
Watch out for more episodes of this CIAC reality show.
(Un)tenable tenacity
NEITHER TELENOVELA nor reality show ala Donald Trump’s The Apprentice can approximate the current corporate drama at the boardroom and the work premises of the Clark International Airport Corp. with Kuwait and Egypt at the sidelines.
Yeah, the movie in my mind that can easily relate to l’affaire CIAC is Wall Street which won an Oscar Best Actor for Michael Douglas in his performance as the supremely amoral corporate magnate Gordon Gecko.
“Greed is good” – more than his corporate philosophy, that was Gecko’s article of faith.
So CIAC board chairman Nestor Mangio – renowned architect, developer of uppity Lakeshore, and papal awardee – is being put to task for what has been dubbed as his “untenable but obstinate tenacity” in pushing for the Kuwaiti firm Al Mal to handle the terminal(s) project at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.
A move described as a virtual sell-out not only of the whole of Clark’s civil aviation complex but of the national patrimony, if not the national sovereignty.
Disclosed CIAC executive vice president Alexander Cauguiran: “The plan was to bid out only the construction of a Terminal 2 at the DMIA. Al Mal wanted to take over the existing Terminal 1 apart from constructing a second and third terminals and control over 1,500 hectares of the 2,500-hectare civil aviation complex.”
On top of that, Cauguiran said Al Mal demanded that no premiere airport be operated within 150-kilometer radius of the DMIA for 45 years, extendable for another 25 years.
“This would deprive other provinces the same chance to host a premiere airport that we fought for before DMIA was developed,” so noted Cauguiran, referring to the advocacy for the development of the Clark Airport espoused by his group Move Clark Now and the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement of Pert Cruz.
Anyone with any rudiment in home economics would see the hand of Gordon Gecko in the Al Mal proposal.
Hence, it was junked in December 2008. It was later revived after the CIAC failed in its initial bidding for the project. Aside from Al Mal, the other pending proposals for the construction of a second passenger terminal are a Malaysian consortium with partners from the United States and the Middle East, and a South Korean consortium with local partners.
Despite Mangio saying in December 2009 that the CIAC board has found the Al Mal proposal “acceptable,” the same junked it in its meeting at Club Filipino on Feb. 16, “for being grossly disadvantageous to the government.”
The Office of Government Corporate Counsel has also been cited as finding certain provisions in the Al Mal proposal as “patently illegal.”
Why then is Mangio seemingly going overboard in his espousal of Al Mal?
“Personally, I am quite convinced that Al Mal is the best contractor for the development of the DMIA…We have been looking for a contractor for the past two years and all, except Al Mal, failed in financial capability.” So was Mangio quoted as telling this paper’s Ding Cervantes in an interview, “pointing out that M.A. Kharafi and Sons, Al Mal’s mother company, has been listed by Fortune Magazine as among the world’s richest.”
Au contraire, cried Max Sangil, former CIAC director and current director of the Bases Conversion Development Authority.
Sangil goes on record that he was the most vocal in the CIAC board in his objection to the Al Mal proposal, “for sheer common sense if not for government and country.”
To Sangil, it was Mangio’s insistence on Al Mal that the construction of Terminal 2 was delayed: “The timetable was disrupted.”
“The opportunities lost with that total focusing on Al Mal are immense to say the least. Terminal 2 would have been a legacy project of the President not only for the people of Pampanga but of Central and Northern Luzon.” So Sangil lamented.
“If he has any remaining delicadeza in his bones, Mangio should quit pronto,” Sangil said, especially given the fact that the President herself has ordered the junking of the Kuwaiti proposal.
With cost-benefit ratio in his mindset, Sangil pointed to the “drain in economic resources the CIAC suffered in evaluating and negotiating with Al Mal.”
“Easily several millions of government money were spent in the many travels of Mangio and the CIAC directors and staff to Kuwait,” Sangil revealed. “What with business class tickets, $300 per day allowances, and other perks.”
“At every special board meeting on the Al Mal proposal, the directors also earned P9,000 each,” he added.
Now, now, truly interesting to see the Commission on Audit report on all these comings and goings, dinings and flying, at CIAC where the Al Mal proposal is concerned.
But Mangio could not be denied a counterpunch on Sangil.
He made his own revelation that Sangil has been blaming him for his removal as member of the CIAC board last December.
“I had no control over rules and regulations. There is a prescription against one person being member of both the boards of CIAC and BCDA. Later I found out the President had signed the appointment of Raffy Angeles as his replacement in the CIAC board,” Mangio explained in Cervantes’ story here Wednesday.
And then a jaw-dropping uppercut: Mangio said that Sangil had worked for his appointment to the BCDA board since directorship in such board is not co-terminus with the term of President Arroyo.
So will Sangil just allow himself to be Mangio’s punching bag?
Watch out for more episodes of this CIAC reality show.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 3:19 PM
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