Now we know

THE CAT’S out of the bag.

Forget Clark International Airport becoming the country’s premier international gateway.

Sangley Point in Cavite – a naval station abandoned by the Americans in 1971 and currently jointly used by the Philippine Air Force (Danilo Atienza Air Base) and the Philippine Navy (Heracleo Alano Naval Base) – is, in all likelihood, going to be it.

A so-called All-Asia Resources and Reclamation Corp. (ARRC) consortium is reported to have submitted to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA)

last Jan. 10 yet letters of intent to undertake the twin projects for Sangley’s re-development into an airport – already named Aquino-Sangley International Airport, and a seaport – already named too as Aguinaldo-Sangley International Seaport.

Fine with the DOTC getting the letter of intent, it has jurisdiction over airports and seaports. But why the PRA? Because it is the clearing house for reclamation projects in the country. There, ARRC’s airport project at Sangley forebodes massive reclamation. Yet another casus belli for the Save Manila Bay coalition, the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas, and their anti-reclamation allies.

Strike two for the militant nationalists among them with the ARRC consortium principally a conglomerate of European firms, reported as “Flugfahen Munich, operator of the Munich airport in Germany; Hamburger Hafen und Logstik, the biggest operator in the Hamburg port, also in Germany; the Italian rail company Ferrovie Circumvesuviana; power firm Isoluc Corsan; Deutsche Bank; COWI, Inros Lackner and GMP Architects; contractors Hochtief and Rizzani de Eccher; and Royal Boskalis Westminster, the lead reclamation contractor.”

“They’re bullish about the Philippines and its development prospects, particularly the development of the country’s newest international gateway, one that will be responsive to the nation’s booming economy and thriving tourism industry.” So was quoted William Tieng, chairman of Solar Group, the lead local partner of ARRC.

It was not as though the Sangley proposal just came out of thin air, Tieng found its rationalization as a “response to the need to develop premier international gateways in the country, as well as Executive Order No. 629, Series of 2007, directing the PRA to convert Sangley Point in Cavite City into an international logistics hub with a modern airport and seaport through an enabling reclamation component.”

And who signed that executive order? Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the President in 2007, that’s who! Got some drift there?

As all letters of intent go, ARRC’s had already timelines for their projects: Construction of Phase 1 of the airport project ASIA is from 2014 to 2018, covering  the “reclamation of 2,500 hectares on the flight line of the Atienza Air Base, development of a 50-million-a-year airport terminal and the first of two runway systems estimated to cost P56.2 billion and P45 billion, respectively.”

Instinctively, Clark comes to mind there: its aviation area of over 2,500 hectares;  its two runways, the newer one designed with the space shuttle in mind. It’s all there but an honest to goodness world class terminal. So why Sangley?  

“The adjacent areas and approaches to the ASIA are largely over water and would allow airport operation on a 24-hour basis,” the ARRC report said.

And gave one up Clark’s you know what: “The availability of space for the expansion of the airport for a third runway is possible while this will not be possible in the Clark International Airport anymore. This makes investment in the development of Sangley a long-term strategic outlook that is driven by logic and not politics … As Sangley becomes integrated into the Greater Metro Manila Area, this will enable the metropolis to retain its bragging rights of being the seat of the premier international airport and capital of the Philippines.”

It is ARRC that is more politics than logic there.

As it is too all politics and not logic that is causing Clark’s unbecoming the Philippines’ premier international gateway.

Geopolitics, albeit on a local context, may also be discerned with the principal players on the side of government in this Sangley project: DOTC  Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and his brother PRA General Manager Peter Anthony Abaya, both blue-blooded Cavitenos.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer story from where got the gist of this piece said that on March 19, ARRC executives briefed top DOTC and PRA officials on the “technical and economic justifications for the development of Sangley Point,” as well as the “global projects and consultancy services track records” of its foreign partners. Both Abayas were there.

Inquirer furthered: On April 5, the company wrote both the DOTC and PRA, committing to “complete the feasibility studies (of the two projects) within six to eight months from the issuance of a PRA board resolution approving the reservation of the right to reclaim in the designated areas (off Cavite City) and a DOTC comfort letter, acknowledging receipt of the unsolicited conceptual proposal of the ARRC.”

On April 25, national media quoted DOTC’s Abaya as saying President Aquino’s Cabinet supported  a “co-development” plan for both Clark International Airport  and the Ninoy Aquino International Airport as an intermediate measure to address air travel congestion at NAIA until a new facility is found or established around 2025.

A consuelo de bobo to the advocates of Clark as premier international gateway. So screamed the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement then.

A fait accompli is more like it.

Cry conspiracy! Shout sabotage!