Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Malig: EO 504-A By Jun A. Malig Cognition
TO “HARMONIZE Subic-Clark strategies,” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has reportedly issued Executive Order 504-A which “strengthened” the two-year-old Subic-Clark Alliance for Development (Scad) Council as the “single body.”
The Scad Council is seen as the body that “will ensure an integrated and coordinated approach to the development of the Scad corridor as a world-class mega-logistics hub and a global gateway to the Asia Pacific Region.”
Under the order, the Scad Council chairman who has the rank of a Cabinet member, “shall be a member of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
The vice chairman of the council will be the secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Its members are the chairmen and presidents of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), Clark Development Corporation (CDC) and Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC), and the chairman and administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA).
Malacanang’s news release last Sunday stated that EO 504-A amends EO 504, series of 2006.
I could not find the full text of EO 504 while I was writing this column last Monday. But EO 504 was already repealed by EO 516 signed by Arroyo on March 24, 2006. EO 516 reverted to the Office of the President the BCDA.
Under EO 504, the trade secretary is mandated to exercise policy oversight over the BCDA.
EO 504-A, according to Malacanang, highlights the “need to clearly define and state the powers and functions of the Scad Council and the Office of the Chairman in order to effectively deal directly with the concerned agencies under its supervision.”
The new executive order places under the “supervision” of the Scad Council the BCDA, CDC, SBMA, CIAC.
The Scad Council chairman is mandated to exercise “policy oversight” over the four agencies insofar as the development of the Subic-Clark area into a “major logistics hub is concerned.”
The Scad Council, which has about nine members -- Secretary Edgardo Pamintuan, BCDA chairman Aloysius Santos, BCDA president Narciso Abaya, CDC chairman Rizalino Navarro, CDC president Liberato Laus, CIAC chairman Nestor Mangio, CIAC president Victor Jose Luciano, SBMA chairman Feliciano Salonga, and SBMA administrator Armand Arreza -- shall “formulate policies and programs to develop Subic, Clark, and the corridor in-between them as (a) globally competitive Mega-Logistics Hub” and “review, identify and recommend priority infrastructure projects for implementation.”
The council will also “formulate common investment promotions activities; and harmonize in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone and Clark Freeport Zone such programs, policies, rules and regulations affecting investments, incentives, customs, immigration, leasing, privatization, and other matters related thereto.”
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The statement, if not warning, aired by administration Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri about the 22-storey and 10-storey Hanjin condominiums seems to merit consideration.
“We may be giving them land today to build condominiums but because this site is a former ammunition dump with toxic contaminants we are instead exposing them to carcinogenic chemicals. We want to know how Hanjin cleared and cleaned the area to make it fit for human habitation,” Zubiri was quoted as saying.
Perhaps concerned government agencies may want to look into this.
