GIVE it to the former president and speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to come up with grand yet doable plans for her beloved Pampanga.
A visionary and economist, she engaged the services of prominent urban planner Architect Felino Palafox Jr. He is to draft a development plan to transform more than 218,000 hectares across three cities and six municipalities.
Earlier, GMA envisioned Pampanga as the next megalopolis north of Manila, with the Clark Freeport Zone and Clark International Airport lending support to the development of these areas.
The land uses of each LGU are being handled by their respective Planning and Development offices. Mabalacat City, for its part, has its City Planning and Development Office, headed by Rosan S. Paquia, EnP. It presently has a parallel run as that of GMA and has a similar development plan.
The perceived Pampanga Golden Triangle is composed of the two highly urbanized cities-Angeles and San Fernando-and one component city-Mabalacat and the municipalities of Porac, Floridablanca, Lubao, Guagua, Sta. Rita and Bacolor.
Mabalacat City shares a parallel development with the Clark Freeport Zone, of which a big chunk of its real estate belongs to the territorial jurisdiction of Mabalacat City.
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Remember that it was during GMA's term that the Subic-Clark-Tarlac expressway was conceptualized and realized to augment other road networks.
If all the grand plans of GMA would materialize, Pampanga will see a tremendous rise in the property sector and make the province a good model for urban development.
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Work in progress. Sustained and massive work has been observed near the perimeter of the Clark Freeport Zone as contractor firms are erecting massive posts to carry the load of the tracks and trains of the soon-to-be-finished Clark Railway System.
So, it is encouraging to know that the NLEX and the DOTr have made a deal to ensure unhampered construction of the PNR Clark Phase 2 (Malolos-Clark) project.
The agreement involves the preparation of coordinated designs, traffic management safety and security plans that are needed to ensure that the PNR Clark Phase 2 will be on track with its construction, says the press release.