Saturday, January 27, 2007 Workers rally to save Clark ecozone By Dante M. Fabian
CLARK ECOZONE - Employees of Clark Development Corporation (CDC) held a noise barrage here Wednesday afternoon as part of their efforts in urging members of the bicameral conference committee to act on the passage of pending bills that would concretize and legitimize tax and duty free incentives for locators inside the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ).
In a lightning rally staged after office hours, CDC workers urged legislators to resolve conflicting versions of tax incentives bill in the House of Representatives and the Senate make the bills at par with Subic incentives.
Marcial Caniones, spokesperson of the workers confederation said, “CDC made Clark happen. CDC brought the national dream of economic recovery from the ravages of lahar and American pull-out a reality.”
“Kill Clark, you kill its surrounding towns, you also kill the livelihood of thousand of Filipinos dependent on the economic activity in the Zone. Lost of jobs will kill the workers and their families. No economic activity outside the zone will mean no progress in the towns and municipalities around. Kill Clark, you kill towns near it, the province and Central Luzon,” he added.
The CDC Employees Confederation said in a statement that "the Senate version of tax incentives would defeat the original intention of the Republic Act 7227 in promoting economic growth in the Metro Clark Area, in particular, as well as the entire country, in general."
“The bills pending before the Senate now will not only kill the investments inside Clark Ecozone but will also bring the now lively world-class industrial aviation area into a ghost-town,” the workers said.
They added that “the Senate bill will not only kill Clark but also its environs. It will not only drive away investments, it will leave more than 50,000 workers hapless and jobless.”
The Senate version of tax incentives for Clark will be limited to only firms inside the 2,200 hectares of the aviation complex which is expected to be declared the freeport zone and the 22 hectares near the CSEZ main gate, while the rest will be under Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) administer area.
The main zone of Clark has 4,400 hectares and more than 30,000 hectares for the subzone.
Should the proposed Senate version be approved, about P150 million annual income of CDC will be affected.
“We, the employees of CDC, implore our local and national leaders to rally behind the cause of Clark Special Economic Zone and save the existence of CDC, the very organization that made the former ash-laden military base bustling with activity and ushered economic revival to its surrounding town,” the confederation of workers in CDC said.
The confederation of CDC employees is composed of the Association of concern CDC Employees (Acces), Association of CDC Supervisory Personnel (ACSP) and the Association of Corporate CDC Executives. At present, the state-owned firm has more than 700 employees. Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC), on the other hand, has more than 300.
CSEZ has a total of 641 investment projects, of which 405 are local firms, 113 foreign, while 123 are firms with foreign and local equities with an aggregate of P24.33 billion since 1993 and produced US $1.1 billion in dollar-earning exports.
The companies have generated 47,481 jobs as of Dec. 31, 2006, of which 90 percent of whom come from Central Luzon, mostly from Pampanga, Tarlac and Bulacan. The number of employment has been considered all-time high since the state-owned firm’s inception in 1993.
