Arroyo names Subic chief in 11th-hour appointment

PRESIDENT Gloria Arroyo has appointed Clark International Airport Corp. chairman Nestor Mangio as concurrent head of the re-organized Subic-Clark Alliance Development Council.

Her Executive Order 876 was dated March 10, the deadline for the constitutional ban on executive appointments, but it was released only on Monday.

The same order renamed Subic-Clark Alliance for Development Council as Subic-Clark Alliance for Development. The council was last led by Ed Pamintuan, who is running for mayor in Angeles City.

“The chairman of the Clark International Airport Corp. shall serve as chairman of SCAD,” Mrs. Arroyo said in her order.

Mangio, an architect and a businessman, served as national president of the United Architects of the Philippines from 1994-1996. He is the owner and developer of The Lakeshore, an upscale village in Mexico town in Pampanga.

Mangio was previously director of the Ramos-era Bases Conversion Development Authority, Fort Bonifacio Development Corp., and Clark Development Corp. before he was appointed chairman of the council, which operates the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.

Mangio finished his undergraduate studies at the University of Santo Tomas, and then received his certificate in Advanced Management Development Program in Real Estate at Harvard University.

Two other members of the SBMA board were appointed replacing Ed Cajudo and Jimmy Lorenzana.

Meanwhile, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., has approved the interconnection of its service areas at the Clark and Subic free ports.

The investors in the two export zones would be saving money from their long-distance calls, but the telephone firms serving them would be losing P2.5 million to P3 million a year once the interconnection took place in May, said Lito Mercado, general manager of PLDT subsidiary Clarktel. Joyce Pangco Pañares - manilastandardtoday.com, with Albert B. Lacanlale