Mayor of Sta. Barbara seeks foreign funding to finance airport feasibility

Mayor Reynaldo Velasco is bent on making Sta. Barbara another airport site for international flights in the Philippines. Santa Barbara is a second class municipality in the province of Pangasinan with a population of less than a hundred thousand people.

According to a report of Sunday Punch last January 20, the mayor is currently looking for funding outside the country to finance the project's feasibility study and, eventually, the construction itself.

Last year, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced that an international airport will be built within her term in Alaminos City, Pangasinan. But according to Velasco, the president is still keeping her options open as to where to locate the new international airport. Aside from Alaminos, which is the original choice, Lingayen and Sta. Barbara were said to be considered as potential sites.

However, Velasco was told that the Php7.8-million set aside in the proposed national budget for the international airport’s feasibility study will be spent solely in the announced Alaminos airport project and nothing for Sta. Barbara. Thus, the mayor is seeking external funds as he is really determined to make sure that Sta. Barbara will also be the location of an international airport in the future. He plans to put up the airport, if ever, on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme. A 600 hectares of land in Barangay Leet has been set aside if the project will push through.

The mayor had already talked with a Singaporean group from whom he is asking Php 700-million from them to partially finance the airport construction. But the group's counter-deal is to provide 1,000 hectares of land because apparently the latter are looking for a more comprehensive development of the site once the airport is built.

Likewise, an American group has also shown some interests in the project, and has been into exploratory talks with the local executives. And a third interested party is a Cavite-based Korean manufacturing firm of pre-fabricated houses, whose owner is said to be closed to Velasco, and is also eyeing to build a world-class golf course in Subic.

*Source: http://sundaypunch.prepys.com