Alaminos City gets it
PANGASINAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
ALAMINOS CITY—Mayor Hernani Braganza is unperturbed by the maneuvers of his fellow Pangasinan officials to snatch his pet project away from this city, proud home of the famed Hundred Islands National Park.
Thompson Lantion, chairman of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, an attached agency of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC), has confirmed here on Thursday that the national government is bent on Alaminos as site of the planned international airport for the province.
Lantion said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has clearly instructed DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza to put the airport in Alaminos.
As this developed, Braganza said a budget has been allocated in the about-to-be approved national budget for the conduct of a pre-feasibility study for the project.
Defending the project, Braganza said, the provincial board of Pangasinan as early as 1993 already proposed Alaminos as site for the airport.
Provincial Board Resolution No. 293, said Braganza, was in support of House Bill No. 1399 authored by then Congressman Oscar Orbos which sought the construction of a domestic airport in Alaminos.
The presiding officer of the Provincial Board at that time was Vice Governor Ranjit Ramos Shahani, nephew of former President Fidel Ramos, and a cousin of Braganza. The provincial board member in the first district at that time was Anthony Sison.
At that time, Braganza was a private citizen.
Braganza brought out this fact in order to point out that the proposal to construct an international airport in Alaminos was much ahead than the recent proposal endorsing Sta. Barbara or Lingayen as the site, which Governor Amado Espino Jr. supports.
The proposal, said Braganza, was made long before Espino became governor of Pangasinan and General Reynaldo Velasco became mayor of Sta. Barbara.
Espino is also pushing for the present feeder airport in Lingayen to be upgraded into a domestic airport while Velasco has been promoting the availability of Sta. Barbara as a site of an international airport.
COMMERCIAL CATEGORY
Braganza cited tourism as the primary purpose for the airport.
Investments in agriculture and in the province’s identified economic zones will just be second priority, he added.
“Pangasinan should have an airport to make the province more accessible to tourists and investors who may want to come, visit and explore the possibility of investing their money,” Braganza said.
He said the airport in Alaminos will be of commercial level, higher in category than the present Lingayen Airport that is only a feeder airport.
A normal commercial airport, said Braganza, is capable of cargo-handling and where bigger planes can land and take off.
The other purpose for a commercial airport in Pangasinan is for the province to be able to bring its native products for sale to other places, including abroad, he added.
“So, from Pangasinan, you can bring your product to Hong Kong, including the Middle East,” he added.
The province of Pangasinan does not need another airstrip, like the one located in Carmen, Rosales as well as the privately owned airstrip on Binalonan town, the mayor added.
He pointed out that an airport must not only be for people, but it must also service the movement of goods as well, enabling Pangasinan to increase its export capability and capacity.
Braganza said based on the initial findings of the Air Transport Office (ATO), an international airport in Alaminos is technically viable.
In further defending the choice of Alaminos as site of the international airport, Braganza said 74% of the province’s tourist destinations are in the first and second districts, both of which are coastal districts.
The fourth district of Pangasinan, which is also coastal, will bring the potential to 90%, while the other three districts-third, fifth and sixth will bring in the remaining 10%.
In terms of agriculture, the mayor said, the first district accounts for 31% of the land area, and together with the second district, the total would be 51%.
Braganza said Alaminos, Sual and Bani are included among the declared economic zones in Pangasinan, along with Villasis and San Fabian. Majority of these are in the first district.—LM
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