Pangasinan tourism development underway

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan — After winning a lengthy court battle against a group of professional squatters who stubbornly occupied a portion of the provincial capitol area, the Pangasinan provincial government can now proceed with its plan to transform the Capitol compound into a premier tourist attraction and historical-architectural landmark as part of the tourism development program of Gov. Victor Agbayani.

Eng. Alvin Bigay, provincial housing and home site regulation officer, said that the task force created by the governor to undertake the project is about to complete the blueprint for the eco-tourism part to be built on the eastern section of the Urduja House, the governor’s official residence, including the details of the restoration work on the historic Capitol Building.

"What kept the project of the governor from moving was the refusal of the family of a professional squatter to vacate the area where the eco-tourism park is to be built," Bigay said, adding that the same family even claimed ownership of the lot, which is about 50 meters from the Urduja House.

Even when most of the squatter families then living within the Capitol premises agreed to be relocated to the resettlement site developed by the provincial government in barangay Pangasinan Norte here, the couple Amador and Aurora de Guzman and a handful of families mostly their relatives refused to leave. Bigay said the provincial government was forced to file an ejectment case against the De Guzman couple and 36 others on May 13, 1999 before Lingayen Municipal Trial Court Judge Hermogenes Fernandez who ruled in favor of the province and ordered the defendants to vacate the place.

The MTC ruling was subsequently upheld by Judge Leo Rapatalo of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 37 in Lingayen, and later by the Court of Appeals which denied a petition for restraining order filed by the couple. Having lost the court battle, the De Guzman couple plotted a "desperate effort with the help of some DENR employees to gain possession by applying for a free patent on the same parcel of land at the beachfront owned by the province, not the area where Urduja House is located as earlier reported," Bigay said. At almost the same time, the group of De Guzman filed three cases against Bigay before the Office of the Ombudsman for abuse of authority, grave misconduct and violation of Republic Act 7279 (Urban Development and Housing Act).

All the three cases were subsequently dismissed.