[Jung]

CLARK FREEPORT – What’s in store for this freeport under the Aquino administration?

Incoming Clark Development Corp. president and chief executive officer Felipe Antonio Remollo, who assumes post next month, said he is eyeing enough area here for the construction of a new Malacañang, as well as buildings to accommodate national government offices.

In an interview with Punto, Remollo said this plan would finally decongest Metro Manila. However, he did not say whether such a move was initiated by Pres. Aquino who, he stressed, personally picked him to assume the CDC post.

The CDC is the implementing arm of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) in this freeport.

The idea of moving the seat of power to this freeport was first broached by former Cebu governor Lito Osmeña after he announced plans to run for president in the 1992 elections, although he ended up being vice presidential bet of former Pres. Ramos.

In an interview with local media then, Osmeña said the transfer of the seat of power from Manila to Clark would be among his priorities if he were elected president.

In the last May elections, presidential candidate former Sen. Richard Gordon also said that if elected, he would consider moving the country’s seat of power to Clark.

Remollo said Clark has enough available lands to accommodate a new Malacañang, as well as buildings for national government agencies.

This move, he said, would finally decongest Metro Manila.

He said that such a move would not be difficult for government workers who live in Metro Manila, amid expectations that the long-delayed railways system between Clark and the metropolis would push through and be completed in due time.

At the same time, Remollo also said that his administration would be zeroing in on developing Clark as a major tourism destination.

“Tourism here could be developed to the maximum also by hosting sports activities as well as promoting medical tourism,” he said.

“We should have a really attractive theme park here,” he added.

Remollo said he would push for the renegotiation of the use of some 300 hectares of land by the Philippine Air Force (PAF). The 300-hectare area, dubbed as Air Force City, was allocated to the 600th air base wing under an agreement between the BCDA and the Department of National Defense and hosts other air force units.

Remollo said he wants tourism-oriented areas within the air force territory to be managed by the CDC. The areas include a resort with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, an “officers’ club” building with conference rooms, a hotel, and a football field. These areas have been noted to be underutilized and deteriorating under the air force management.

This, even as Remollo junked reports that former senator Mar Roxas, a fellow Visayan, had backed his appointment to the top CDC post as a political favor in Roxas’s purported presidential bid in 2016.

Roxas was supposed to be the Liberal Party’s presidential candidate in 2010, but he slid to being vice presidential bet to give way to Aquino.

“It was Pres. Aquino himself who decided the CDC post for me. I have known him for the past 10 years and even as early as last December, he had been hinting on this, but I really never expected it until a week after he signed the latter endorsing me as CDC president,” Remollo said.

Remollo served as mayor of Dumaguete from June 1998 to June 30, 2001. During his term, he was twice named as outstanding mayor by the Annual Consumers Awards of the Consumer Union of the Philippines, his bio-data said.

Remollo’s bio-data also indicated he was born in Dumaguete on Feb. 13, 1961 and studied there. He graduated salutatorian from St. Paul’s College before pursuing high school and college at the Silliman University in the city.

Remollo graduated magna cum laude from Silliman University in 1981, having taken up Bachelor of Arts, major in history and political science. In 1985, he graduated from a law course with honors from the Ateneo de Manila University.

From 2001 up to last April 15, he had been senior vice president and legal counsel of Prudential Guarantee and Assurance, Inc. in Legaspi Village in Makati City. He is also a principal and partner at RC Law Practitioners with office at Puyat Ave. also in Makati.

SOURCE: Punto