Clark: The dream that works

VIRTUAL REALITY

- TONY LOPEZ

Clark is the best investment and tourism destination in the Philippines today. And perhaps in the whole of Asia. Filipino investors should take a serious look into it—now. Otherwise, foreign locators are about to take it over, for themselves, for their people, for their countries.

The South Koreans are leasing Clark lands by the hundreds of hectares (at bargain rates of $3.50 per sqm or less, for terms as long as 99 years), converting them into sprawling factory sites, hotel-casino-golf courses and shopping malls that rival the huge shopping palaces of SM and Robinsons in Metro Manila, 84 kms south of Clark.

Clark as a destination for the world's factories and travelers is spread over 35,000 hectares of prime land just an hour's drive from Quezon City, and cheek by jowl to Subic, the expansive deep blue water port coveted by navies of the major powers. Clark is at the center of Central Luzon, home to the nation's richest, most progressive provinces.

The 35,000 hectares of Clark land area have been cut up into four: the Clark Freeport under the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) with 2,200 hectares; the civil aviation complex of Clark International Airport, 2,347 hectares, of which 759 hectares are under the LIPAD Group of JG summit; the new Clark City, with 9,450 hectares and the rest, reserved for future strategic use.

Regional and global interest in Clark is seeing a resurgence because of recent developments:

1) The current tension in the West Philippine Sea with China, with the Americans committing their ironclad backing for Manila amid competing sovereign and sovereignty claims over 3.5 million sq kms of strategic waters in the Indo Pacific;

2) Donald Trump's punishing tariffs on exporters, primarily China;

3) The shift to lower tariff areas like the Philippines to avoid Trump's tariffs;