Tax perks seen behind resignation of Clark boss
By Tonette Orejas
CLARK SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE -- Why did Antonio Ng resign from the state-owned Clark Development Corp. and why has there been another change of leadership, the seventh since 1992, in this other half of the Subic-Clark growth corridor?
Ng, who served as CDC president and chief executive officer for 18 months, said the reason was simple.
“It’s time to move on,” he said.
“Let’s not anymore create controversy,” Ng, 57, told the Inquirer when pressed for answers on Wednesday, a day after he tendered his irrevocable resignation effective September 30.
Ng spent 34 years in the private sector, mainly at Intel and Motorola before he agreed to join the CDC in March last year.
But CDC officials saw the probable reason for Ng’s exit.
“Locators perceived him as not aggressive enough in the campaign to regain [their] tax incentives. It meant their survival,” Angelo Lopez Sr., CDC community affairs chief, said.
Another CDC official, who asked not to be named, said Ng simply did not want to resort to using “dirty lobby” or dishing out favors, concessions or money to anybody who might help convince Congress decide to give back the tax perks.
The Supreme Court revoked the privilege in July 2005, saying Republic Act No. 7227, or the bases conversion law, did not grant the privileges to those doing business at Clark.
“He was ‘Mr. Aboveboard,’” the CDC official said.
Two bills seeking to regain the perks and provide tax amnesty have passed the House of Representatives after a year of hearings. The bills are now in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Ralph Recto and endorsed as urgent by President Macapagal-Arroyo.
Still, Ng’s approach dissatisfied the Clark Investors and Locators Association (Cila).
On Aug. 8, before Ms Arroyo visited this economic zone to inaugurate a pilot school and while Ng was in the United States for a month-long leave of absence, Cila issued a resolution declaring its “loss of confidence in the leadership of the CDC for passivity and ineffectiveness in addressing the concerns of the locators of the CSEZ.”
On top of the tax incentive issue, it raised concerns on security problems, rental rates and “slow decision process within CDC.”
Ng said the tax incentive campaign had “absolutely nothing to do” with his resignation.
“We got this in a completely aboveboard manner,” he said of the slow yet fruitful drive.
Cila president Frankie Villanueva on Wednesday declined to say what his group disliked about Ng. He said this was out of courtesy for someone who was leaving.
Villanueva admitted, though, that Cila took its issues to the Metro Clark Advisory Council, a body comprised of local officials in towns and cities around Clark. It is this group that elevated the issues to the President and her advisers.
Lopez said Ng was beset with a case of balancing act between the corporate world and the Clark community that comprised the business sector and political leaders.
Inquirer Central Luzon
Ng, who served as CDC president and chief executive officer for 18 months, said the reason was simple.
“It’s time to move on,” he said.
“Let’s not anymore create controversy,” Ng, 57, told the Inquirer when pressed for answers on Wednesday, a day after he tendered his irrevocable resignation effective September 30.
Ng spent 34 years in the private sector, mainly at Intel and Motorola before he agreed to join the CDC in March last year.
But CDC officials saw the probable reason for Ng’s exit.
“Locators perceived him as not aggressive enough in the campaign to regain [their] tax incentives. It meant their survival,” Angelo Lopez Sr., CDC community affairs chief, said.
Another CDC official, who asked not to be named, said Ng simply did not want to resort to using “dirty lobby” or dishing out favors, concessions or money to anybody who might help convince Congress decide to give back the tax perks.
The Supreme Court revoked the privilege in July 2005, saying Republic Act No. 7227, or the bases conversion law, did not grant the privileges to those doing business at Clark.
“He was ‘Mr. Aboveboard,’” the CDC official said.
Two bills seeking to regain the perks and provide tax amnesty have passed the House of Representatives after a year of hearings. The bills are now in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Ralph Recto and endorsed as urgent by President Macapagal-Arroyo.
Still, Ng’s approach dissatisfied the Clark Investors and Locators Association (Cila).
On Aug. 8, before Ms Arroyo visited this economic zone to inaugurate a pilot school and while Ng was in the United States for a month-long leave of absence, Cila issued a resolution declaring its “loss of confidence in the leadership of the CDC for passivity and ineffectiveness in addressing the concerns of the locators of the CSEZ.”
On top of the tax incentive issue, it raised concerns on security problems, rental rates and “slow decision process within CDC.”
Ng said the tax incentive campaign had “absolutely nothing to do” with his resignation.
“We got this in a completely aboveboard manner,” he said of the slow yet fruitful drive.
Cila president Frankie Villanueva on Wednesday declined to say what his group disliked about Ng. He said this was out of courtesy for someone who was leaving.
Villanueva admitted, though, that Cila took its issues to the Metro Clark Advisory Council, a body comprised of local officials in towns and cities around Clark. It is this group that elevated the issues to the President and her advisers.
Lopez said Ng was beset with a case of balancing act between the corporate world and the Clark community that comprised the business sector and political leaders.
Inquirer Central Luzon
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