More aid pledged to rebuild CCMC

CEBU, Philippines - Filipino communities in five cities of the United States of America have committed to help in the reconstruction of the Cebu City Medical Center.

The National Federation of Filipino-American Association in San Diego has promised to assist in the construction of the hospital’s second floor while Operation Smile, a non-government organization in Nevada also pledged to shoulder expenses to construct the fourth floor.

Mayor Michael Rama, who just arrived from a month-long vacation abroad, yesterday said Filipinos in Houston expressed commitment to adopt the medical facility’s third floor, while those in Seattle pledged to take care of the fifth floor.

He said there were also those from Salinas City who assured him that they would finance the construction of the sixth floor.

Rama said Chinese-Filipino businessman Henry Sy is still committed to build CCMC’s upper ground floor.    “Some of them would give me already the amount but I don’t want to be receiving the amount. No amount will be received by me. Let it be under a structure where transparency and accountability should be observed,” he said.

Aside from taking a break from his duties, Rama went to USA to raise funds for the construction of a new CCMC building, which is estimated to cost P1.5 billion. 

He presented to various Filipino communities the current situation of the city-run hospital, which was torn down after it was declared unfit for occupancy following last year’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake.

“I don’t want to burden the general fund (of the city government) by making some reduction that will go towards basic services. (That’s why) we adopted… ‘Piso Mo Hospital Ko’ and tapped different civic organizations abroad to help us,” he said.

“We’ve been successful in getting and securing commitments. They will all be helping CCMC to rise again. I am pretty sure of that, that there will be light at the end of the tunnel,” Rama said. — (FREEMAN)