By Punto I-team (www.punto.com.ph)
Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) Chair Ruperto Cruz called
for Roxas’s resignation after the DOTC chief announced in various media reports
that the government may force airlines to reduce their flights at the Ninoy Aquino
International Airport
to ease congestion that has caused delays in air travel.
“You don’t need a rocket scientist to see the solution to
these problems,” Cruz said. The PGKM chair stressed that Clark is the obvious
solution to the compounded issues hounding NAIA “but it is obvious that Roxas
is utterly blind to Clark and its airport
facilities.”
Media reports quoted Roxas as saying the government is still
convincing airline executives to “cut their flights voluntarily, before we
bring the heavy hand of government down on them…If they don’t do it
voluntarily, government will force them to stop excess flights.”
“If that is the case,” Cruz noted “then the DOTC is the one
to be blamed for the deliberate sabotage of the economy and death of the
country’s tourism industry.”
Cruz pointed out that Roxas proposal to reduce flights ran
against the “express goal of the government, as articulated by the Department
of Tourism to bring in as much as 10 million tourists by 2016.”
“What leader is this who would rather prefer the stunted
growth or worse, even kill the country’s economy and tourism industry than
develop the Clark
International Airport ,
which is the best alternative to the now-congested NAIA,” asked Cruz of Roxas.
“If Mr. Roxas cannot find a solution to a simple problem,
then what more can we expect from him at the helm of the transportation
department,” Cruz said.
“If he is not fit to run the DOTC then he is, likewise,
unqualified to run as senator moreso as president of the Philippines ,”
he added, referring to rumors that Roxas is eyeing either a seat in the Senate
or the presidency in the 2016 polls.
Cruz said that the PGKM “refuses to believe rumors that
Roxas is priming up for his bid for either the presidency or even the senate
but his inconsistent statements tells us otherwise.”
He added: “He is even being criticized for seemingly serving
the interests of influential personalities in Imperial Manila to pursue his
political ambitions.”
More inconsistencies
Earlier, Roxas announced that the government will develop
the international airport inside the Clark Freeport.
However, media reports quoted Roxas last week saying that
the development of Clark will still face
further delays since the government has yet to thresh out “anomalies” in the
deal between the administration of former Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Chinese
engineers on the NorthRail Project.
But Cruz criticized Roxas for using the NorthRail issue as
an excuse to backtrack from his previous pronouncements. The PGKM chair
reiterated his support to the railway project and airport development bid
proposed by businessman Manny Pangilinan.
“Manny Pangilinan’s proposal is by far the best solution to
NAIA’s problems and yet Secretary Roxas refuses to acknowledge this,” said
Cruz.
Good money down the drain
“It seems there really is an effort to quash any bid that
could develop Clark as an international
gateway to the world. All these inconsistent statements of Mr. Roxas only add
more fuel to suspicions of a conspiracy to seal the fate of the Clark airport.”
Cruz noted that the government will only pour “good money
down the drain” if it pursues its bid to develop NAIA instead of the
international airport at Clark .
“For one, there’s no way
for any expansion of NAIA’ single runway, with the whole 600 hectares already constricted, bounded as
it is by the South Luzon Expressway and the housing areas like the
Multi-national Village,” Cruz said.
“Then, there is Metro Manila is in clear and present danger
of the worst effects of global warming? Floodings, as they are now, have many
times paralyzed all traffic in the metropolis, catching NAIA in a gridlock.”
“On the other side, there is Clark
with its 2,500-hectare aviation area, some 70 degrees above sea level. But
Roxas refuses to see this. So, what interest is he in pursuit of? Definitely
not the people’s,” Cruz charged.