Controversial Lingayen golf course given ECC

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – The Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has issued an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) for the proposed 18-hole golf course project of the provincial government on a 38-hectare land in three barangays here. 

In a letter dated Jan. 2, lawyer Juan Miguel Cuna, EMB acting director, informed provincial administrator Rafael Baraan that the DENR was granting the ECC after the project “satisfactorily complied with the requirements” and upon his agency’s recommendation.

With the ECC, Cuna said the EMB expects the provincial government to implement measures presented in the environmental impact statement that would protect and mitigate the project’s perceived adverse impacts on the community’s health and welfare and the environment. 

“Project implementation shall proceed only after securing the necessary permits from other pertinent government agencies. Environmental considerations shall be incorporated in all phases and aspects of the project,” Cuna said.

He added that the EMB would monitor the project periodically to ensure the provincial government’s compliance with stipulations cited in the ECC. 

The site of the 18-hole golf course traverses the barangays of Sabangan, Estanza and Malimpuec here.

Upon receiving the ECC last Friday, Gov. Amado Espino Jr. ordered his men to comply with the conditions, engineer Alvin Bigay, provincial housing and urban development officer, told the media.

Bigay reiterated that they were not undertaking any black sand mining in the area as alleged by a group that filed a case against Espino before the Office of the Ombudsman last year.

“We have been saying since the start of the project that our real intention in the area is to develop a golf course. It was just coincidental that in the course of our development, we saw unwanted materials like magnetite sand that must be removed as per recommendation of our technical team to develop it properly into a golf course so that suitable grasses would grow,” Bigay said.