The Philippine Department of Transportation (DOTr) will be transferring its main office to Clark, Pampanga in July this year, leading plans to relocate government offices outside of Metro Manila to decongest the mega city.
Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said his department’s main office from Ortigas in Mandaluyong will relocate to New Clark City in Pampanga.
“We will start moving July this year with offices finished or unfinished. We should start the first move to decongest Metro Manila of government offices,” Tugade said during the Dutertenomics Forum on April 18.
He said his original plan was to make the move last December but decided to do so only in July due to opposition to the plan. Tugade had earlier announced his intention to transfer DOTr’s main office to Clark as a way to decongest Metro Manila.
Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) president Vivencio Dizon, during the same forum, confirmed that key government offices will slowly be transferred from Metro Manila to New Clark City.
Construction of the new city is ongoing, according to Dizon. “We are already building the roads. Portions of [the project] have already been awarded to private partners,” he added.
New Clark City will be the country’s first and only smart and green metropolis. The 9,450-hectare development within the Clark Special Economic Zone will feature mixed-use real estate developments, including housing, a business continuity center to house national government agencies, an agro-industrial park for research and development, a food processing terminal, and the Philippine Sports City.
The New Clark City will be a network of open spaces served by public transport, seen as a long-term solution to traffic congestion in main urban centers, BCDA said.
The new city will be complemented by other proposed infrastructure projects such as Clark International Airport’s (CRK) new passenger terminal building and the Philippine National Railway’s (PNR) north railway system.
The new airport terminal can accommodate 8 million passengers annually.
With a cost of P225 million, PNR North Railway will connect Manila and Clark and accommodate 350,000 commuters daily. Construction will start in the second quarter of 2018; completion is set for 2021.
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