CRK instead of NAIA

IF YOU are traveling overseas, or even to selected domestic destinations, I suggest you use Clark International Airport (CRK) instead of any of the three NAIA terminals, particularly not Terminal 3. (I have not used NAIA 4 in decades, so I have not included it here).

Twice over the past six months, I used CRK as point of embarkation to visit some parts of Central Europe in autumn and, last week, to Taipei. I also traveled to Hong Kong and Osaka recently via Terminal 1, which is a lot better than T-3 despite its age.

Traveling via the SMC-run Skyway, then NLEX and a bit of SCTEX got me to CRK in less than two hours at leisurely paced driving.

It takes me half an hour from Makati to NAIA One using the Skyway, but a friend who lives near the Batasang Pambansa and has to use C-5 or EDSA takes two hours, sometimes more, to get to the NAIA complex.

Aside from its tastefully-designed and functional architecture, and because there are yet fewer flights through CRK, the whole process of checking-in, passing through immigration and carry-on security checks are a breeze compared to the long lines in the NAIA complex.

And the airport employees are extremely courteous unlike many of their harried NAIA counterparts.

Arrival back to CRK is also quite pleasurable, and one is out of the terminal in less than half an hour.

A bonus is getting good eats at Clark’s restaurants, whether great Kapampangan cuisine or a sandwich at newly-opened Porch Café with its nice ambience in Cardinal Santos St. beside the football field.

Indeed, if one resides in the northern or eastern parts of NCR, whether QC, suburban Rizal or the Camanava area, using Clark instead of NAIA is a much better alternative.

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There is a reduced flow of OFW’s from the Philippines to Taiwan.

While several flights had been fully booked with OFWs arriving at the Taoyuan International Airport from our country, a Taiwanese immigration official told me that now there are a lot less.

On my Taipei-bound flight, most were returning balikbayans transiting through Taiwan’s main gateway, and very few were migrant workers.

Asking businessmen-friends while in Taipei, I learned that many factories are laying-off workers or not re-hiring due to unfavorable business conditions.

What is a looming problem is a recent memorandum of understanding signed by Taiwan with India last February, where migrant workers from the world’s most populous country will be recruited into the demographicallychallenged island.

While details have yet to be ironed out between the two governments’ ministries of labor, there is a threat to the further influx of Filipino migrant workers who receive very good pay and health benefits in Taiwan compared to other destinations.

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Which brings me to our FDI portfolio, which despite numerous MOUs and LOIs and MOAs trumpeted by the Department of Trade and Industry, on top of efforts of our No. 1 salesman, the President himself, have yet to truly materialize.

Although China’s economy is troubled, its investment and construction activities in the Asia-Pacific region are on the rise, but not in the Philippines.

Nikkei recently reported that based on data culled by Brisbane’s Griffith University and Shanghai’s Fudan University, China’s investment in the AsPac region rose by 37 percent year-on-year in 2023, with a total of 20 billion dollars, and about 17 billion dollars more in construction activity financed through Chinese loans.

Despite a troubled manufacturing and property sector, China’s engagement in the region has been on the rise, approaching pre-pandemic levels.

These have benefited countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and even already uberwealthy Singapore, not to mention hydro-electric projects in Laos and major infrastructure in Cambodia; even the new garments capital of Asia, formerly dirt-poor Bangladesh.

The Philippines, Pakistan, Mongolia and Myanmar have had zero investments last year, largely due to geo-political problems and economic uncertainties.

For the Philippines especially, that zero-investment trend from the world’s second largest economy will likely continue, and for obvious reasons.

We can only hope that President Marcos Jr’s “apertura a la Occidente” will bear results soon enough, and pledges, letters of intent and memoranda of understanding will blossom into real hard investments.

Hopefully, those US allies and even the US of A itself will invest in the Philippines, rather than look at us as just another market for their weapons, their submarines, their aircraft and other manufactures, given our large 114 million people and our security concerns, so as to balance the zero coming from China.

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For the Philippines especially, that zeroinvestment trend from the world’s second largest economy will likely continue, and for obvious reasons