by Diego Morra
Inasmuch as Ramon Ang, caretaker of billions of assets of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) accumulated by the late Danding Cojuangco and architect of the shift from being a food and beverage conglomerate into an infrastructure, power generation and mining behemoth for the best interests of his principals, has threatened to sue those whom he accused of maligning him, his treasured San Miguel Aerocity, Inc. (SMAI), his much-ballyhooed New Manila International Airport (NMIA) and sullying his reputation or whatever for lambasting him for the flooding of Bulacan and Pampanga.
The challenge now for the man whom two Philippine Star columnists pushed to become the country’s infrastructure czar on the same day is for him to charge criminally a total of 3,876,606 Bulakenos and 2,586,946 Pampangos who have protested the impact of his 2,500-hectare reclamation project to construct the “world-class” NMIA. Ang must also sue the members of Tindig Hagonoy, Bigkis Bulacan, Manila Bay defenders Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) chairman Danilo Ramos, Pamalakaya vice chairman Ronnel Arambulo and Anakpawis party-list leaders, along with the flood victims of Tarlac who have been suffering from unprecedented inundation since the time of the Philippine revolution.
Ang vowed to reward snitches who would rat on his “anonymous” critics P1-million each, not bad scrip at all and certainly much higher than the fictive Sara informers received, but the 6-million people who have condemned Ang are not anonymous, they have names that can be confirmed by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and civil registrars, church records and academic institutions. They deserve to be paid P1-million each for coming out and criticizing a land grab consummated with than a little help of soldiers and all sorts of blandishments. It is by no means small money. Just P6,463,252,000,000, which is chump change for Ramon Ang.
Ramon Ang should stop pretending that his interest, SMC’s interest and the interest of his principals are bigger than the welfare of 6-million people in Central Luzon. His case should be a landmark in the country’s jurisprudential history given that in 2021, a petition to grant temporary protection to the people of Taliptip, Bulakan and prevent the NMIA project from proceeding was given short shrift by the Supreme Court, with the tribunal resolution signed only by the clerk of court. Now, let us see how Ang would argue that the takeover of 2,500 hectares of farms and fishing communities in Bulakan, Bulacan did not violate the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), even as the 1935 Constitution already banned the ownership by individuals of 1,024 hectares of land.
Locating an airport in Taliptip, Bulakan, Bulacan was hardly an option for the Philippines, a study conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) reported to the administration of the late President Noynoy Aquino. Sensing he could make a killing on a new airport to replace the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), Ramon Ang submitted an In September 2016, during the Duterte administration, San Miguel submitted an unsolicited proposal to construct the NMIA in Bulakan, Bulacan sweetening his bid with the usual tack: SMC will spend P735-billion to build it. JICA was flummoxed since its extensive study of five possible sites—Manila Bay, Clark, Bulacan, Laguna de Bay and Sangley — proved the best option was Sangley Point in Cavite City, a former US military facility. The JICA research was not sweetened, as Ang’s hype did, that his airport would handle 100-million passengers annually, including a dozen or so terrestrials.
The proposal was laced with caviar, with four separate runways accommodating the largest jets and freighters known to man. Of course, SMC would benefit from the facility as it would house grains terminals, and storage depots and even host a world-class racing circuit for Ferraris, Maseratis, Lamborghinis and Bugattis to better serve the obsession of Ang for fast cars (indeed, he was Danding’s trusted mechanic and fellow pilot.) The administration of Rodrigo Duterte ate the guff, granting SMC an Original Proponent Status (OPS) in a jiffy in 2017, and the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) board that Duterte himself headed approved it the succeeding year.
Ang “won” the award in 2019, and a 50-year concession agreement was signed forthwith as Ramon Ang grinned from ear-to-ear. So, the steamrolling happened under the watch of Duterte, like the 36 reclamation projects in Manila Bay that would enrich the idle rentiers and flood Metro Manila. Did Ramon Ang ever shoot down the JICA study with another study that was anchored on science, geology, hydrology and physics? It did, but it failed spectacularly, as passages from the NMIA risk assessment showed the futility of the project and confirmed the validity of the flooding issue raised by Pampanga Rep. Anna York Bondoc in 2023.
NMIA’s Environment and Social Assessment, Volume V, published in November 2021 warned: “To protect the site from flooding, storm surge and flood, protection measures need to be implemented. A bund wall surrounding the site is required to provide the necessary coastal protection, while the airport site also needs to be raised from the current 0 to 1 meter above mean sea level to at least 3 to 5 meters above mean sea level to minimize flood inundation. As a consequence of the above flood protection design for the airport site, there will be induced exacerbation of flooding to the rivers and floodplain areas surrounding the airport site… The formation of the airport land platform will block off an existing land channel of 50- meter width as well as the existing site as a floodplain area and force floodwaters into the surrounding rivers, which would potentially increase the extent of flooding outside the site. In addition, the airport would discharge surface runoff into the surrounding rivers via 4 stormwater outfalls. The increased impermeable land from the airport will increase the volume and peak runoff discharge to the rivers, further exacerbating potential flood risks to the surrounding river system.” Apparently, Ramon Ang never read these passages. Now, who deserves to be charged criminally? #
