Caramoan, C. Sur – Municipal and barangay officials and community leaders here have again signed a petition to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to formally discontinue the proposed airport in this municipality until another more suitable site conforming with the desire of the people and not violating the law is identified.
The petition signed last March 26 also asked that the P45 million fund allocated by the DOTC for the airport project be immediately recalled as it is being used by the Camarines Sur provincial government as its basis for pursuing an expropriation case against more than 100 families who own the land.
“The government must not ignore the reality that no government project implemented against the will of the people especially the supposed beneficiaries ever succeeds”, Vice Mayor Juan Cordis Jr. emphasized.
The municipal government of Caramoan had earlier passed a resolution opposing the proposed airport along with separate resolutions and petitions of barangay councils affected by the project, the Caramoan District Teachers and Employees Association (CADISTEA) and the Caramoan Parish Pastoral Councils with hundreds of signatories.
Obviously because of the numerous petitions, President Arroyo told Virac RTC Judge Lelu Contreras when the latter asked about the airport project during an audience of women judges in Malacañang late in February that the airport would no longer be continued but the Caramoan coastal road will be pursued and completed.
Virac Bishop Manolo A. de los Santos D.D. was also informed by Undersecretary Fatima Valdes that DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza is recalling the P45 million fund.
Residents here strongly opposed the proposed airport because it is planned to be built too close to the town proper and on 103 hectares of the very limited area covered by the Hanopol Dam Irrigation System for which the government already spent P110 million. The only irrigation system in the town would serve only 250 hectares.
Residents here explain that there are other more suitable sites for an airport if the infrastructure is really needed supposedly for the tourism development plan of the provincial government. One such area is near barangay Paniman which is within the tourism zone. But the provincial government, particularly Gov. L-Ray Villafuerte, had turned a deaf ear to appeals by residents including town councilors who approached him while on a visit at Gota Beach here before the provincial government filed expropriation cases against more than 100 families here who own the 103 hectares targeted for the airport.
