Sunday, July 12, 2009 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
CEBU CITY -- Despite the P47-million income of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC), City Mayor Tomas Osmeña believes the building is a white elephant that should be converted into a provincial hospital.
Governor Gwendolyn Garcia should not only report the income of the CICC, but also the amount the Capitol spends to operate and maintain the building and its “leaking roof,” said the mayor.
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In her State of the Province Address last Friday, the governor reported the CICC has earned nearly P47 million since 2007.
It also generated P228 million in “multiplier effect value” that same year, P295 million in 2008 and P476 million from January to June 2009. Garcia cited meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry estimates.
“Not bad for a building that someone, quite curiously, claims to have been built out of scrap metal,” Garcia said in her speech, apparently referring to Osmeña and the City Government’s joint venture with Filinvest Land Inc. “But just because he made his city settle for scraps in a recent controversial and highly questionable deal does not make him the expert on scrap.”
The mayor sent his retorts by text message from abroad.
He said Garcia still has to answer to her constituents why the CICC cost P900 million to construct, “when she gave a half-day seminar defending P500 million as a justifiable cost.”
As this developed, the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas said it can’t start the investigation on the allegedly overpriced construction of the CICC, in the absence of a report from the Commission on Audit (COA).
Proof
Deputy Ombudsman Pelagio Apostol, who was part of the audience for the governor’s speech, said his office still “can’t see the real picture” due to the lack of documents to support critics’ claims against the project.
Osmeña said while the province professes to take health care seriously, 30 percent of the Cebu City Medical Center’s (CCMC) patients are not from this city, and most of them are from the province.
“The province keeps bragging that they provide medical services, yet their constituents run to a national hospital, Vicente Sotto, and CCMC for medical services. She should convert CICC to a provincial hospital instead of serving as a white elephant competing with local hotels and restaurants for weddings and baptisms,” the mayor said.
In the same speech, the governor also announced that the province is debt-free, and has P1.676 in gross income as of December 31, 2008.
Income
But with collections amounting to P1.85 billion for 2008, Osmeña said “the City of Cebu has a much higher income than the Province, and the Province is much bigger.”
“The province claims to be worth P20 billion because their properties are inside Cebu City. If these properties were in Dumanjug, they would be worth a few carabaos… The governor, her father and her brother are living in Cebu City because they are afraid to live in their dark kingdom where even a priest is victimized and killed under the cover of darkness,” Osmeña added.
Garcia, in her speech, said the first provincial hospital’s operations will begin this year in Carcar, and that two more will be built in Balamban and Danao City.
As for the inquiry on the CICC, Deputy Ombudsman Apostol said his office did not receive a report from COA stating that the construction was indeed overpriced.
“Malaki ang part ng COA. They need to have a report stating that the project was overpriced or not,” Apostol said.
Osmeña previously submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas and COA some documents to back his accusation that scrap iron was used to build the CICC.
Tom & Cris
Last June 1, 2009, businessman Crisologo Saavedra asked the ombudsman to investigate the true cost of the CICC. He asked the anti-graft office to place some provincial officials under preventive suspension while it investigates “illegal and anomalous” additional work on the structure.
Although he is an engineer himself, Apostol said he can’t just review the construction price and actual materials used for the project, which was built for the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in January 2007.
Reviewing the actual expenses incurred, he said, needs COA’s expertise.
“There are allegations and counter-allegations… We can’t still see the real picture,” Apostol added. (LCR/With RSA/Sun.Star Cebu)
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