ALAMINOS CITY – Three sites have been checked out by the Department of Transportation and Communication as possible location of a proposed international airport to be built here hopefully starting next year at a cost of half a billion pesos.

City Mayor Hernani Braganza said the three sites were the subject of an ocular inspection two weeks ago by a technical team from the DOTC that found all sites recommended by the city government to have passed the criteria as possible location of the Pangasinan International Airport.

The airport for Alaminos City was among projects identified by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during her State of the Nation Address before Congress on July 22, 2007 to be built by her administration as part of the mega-projects that will spur developments in the North Luzon Agri-business Quadrangle.

Braganza said the DOTC team inspected the areas at the boundaries of Alaminos and Sual, Alaminos with Mabini and Alaminos with Bani which are large agricultural lands that are flat but are not being flooded at any time of the year.

Either of the three sites measured up to the criteria set by DOTC as site of the international airport, said Braganza, pointing out that in all the sites, only a few families would be relocated.

None of the three sites is affected by crosswind coming from the Lingayen Gulf, it was also significant noted.

Also, all these sites are well outside the center of the city, so the people need not worry about noise pollution that would be created by planes touching down and taking off.

At the same time, any of these sites provides adequate additional areas for expansion.

Braganza said the ocular inspection validated an earlier survey conducted in these areas by the Air Transportation Office, also of DOTC, from which a final feasibility study can be drawn.

He said being eyed to be set up in Alaminos is an airport that will have an initial 1.2 kilometer runway but which can be extended to 1.8 kilometer for it to be able to accommodate cargo planes from abroad.

In a talk to newsmen, Braganza said Alaminos or the first district of Pangasinan is the ideal location for the Pangasinan international Airport because it is in this district where 70 percent of the more than 200 square kilometers of idle lands in the province is located.

He estimated that there are more than 20,000 to 30,000 idle lands in the first district of Pangasinan, tagged as the province’s western corridor, many of which can be tapped as location for the airport project.