Provincial government to take over Sibonga church restoration

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu Governor Gwendolyn has decided that the Cebu provincial government will be the one to do the restoration works of the damaged parts of the Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragoza Church in the town of Sibonga, southern Cebu.

This is due to the delay of the restoration works the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) had promised to do.

In a meeting with officials of TIEZA recently at the Capitol, Garcia aired her frustration and dismay on the delay of renovation works.

“You tell Mark Lapid, thanks but no thanks,” Garcia told the officials of TIEZA, as per report of Sugbo News, the Capitol’s news arm.

The Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragoza Church in Sibonga, which has been recognized as a historical site by the National Historical a Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), incurred damages when supertyphoon Odette hit Cebu in 2021.

In 2022, TIEZA’s general manager and COO Mark Lapid visited the church accompanied by Garcia. The infrastructure arm of the Department of Tourism (DOT) committed to do the restoration efforts and allocated P110 million for its rehabilitation.

But during the meeting this week, the governor noted the delay on the restoration efforts, even pointing to the rehabilitation study commissioned by TIEZA, which was worth P5 million but with little progress towards the agency’s actual restoration work.

This prompted the governor to invoke section 16 of the Local Government Code which grants the local government unit within their respective territorial jurisdictions to "ensure and support, among other things, the preservation and enrichment of culture, promote health and safety, enhance the right of the people to a balanced ecology, encourage and support the development of appropriate and self-reliant scientific and technological capabilities, improve public moral…”

Garcia said the Capitol will allocate the necessary funds to rehabilitate the church and will work with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts to ensure that the restoration works follow the guidelines for heritage structures as well as the national standards in preserving churches which are historical treasures of the country. – ATO (CEBU NEWS)