Archival seeks to defer command center project

CEBU, Philippines —  To avoid the proposed multi-million peso command center from becoming another unfinished infrastructure project like the Cebu City Medical Center, Councilor Nestor Archival suggested shelving the project for the meantime until everything is ironed out.

Archival, City Council minority floor leader, pushed for the suspension in the implementation of the project after Architect Emmanuel Cuizon admitted that the P117 million budget may not be enough to finish the building.

The City Council invited Cuizon to present the building design before granting Mayor Edgardo Labella an authority to enter into a contract with the winning bidder. The command center or the Cebu City Incident and Traffic Enforcement Control has been designed phase-by-phase as the P117.3 million budget may not be enough to complete everything.

“For the P117 million, sa right-wing nato dili na siya finished,” Cuizon admitted.

“So this is really not finished? Uy! Unsaon man di ay ni nato, mag add napod ta ani. I think we need to stop this. I mean, this is my opinion, we need to have a clear view of what is the total cost,” said Archival.

He reminded his colleagues in the council of the CCMC and he hopes that it will not suffer the same fate.

“If not, it will be the same as CCMC. In CCMC, there's so much money there. Now we are spending another P1.5 billion wa pagud na mahuman. Nya kani, kinahanglan gud ta before ta mag start klarohon ni nato kwentas klaras ba nga being an architect makadupa ka nga mao ni wa na gyud tay kuwangan ani kay mao man gud ni problema nato sa City Government,” Archival said.

He also pointed out another issue on the lot where the proposed project will be constructed. The proposed command center will be built on Block 27 at the North Reclamation Area, which is subject of a land swap deal with the Cebu Provincial government.

“We should be very careful in doing this because if we are going to make a mistake, we would be throwing at least P117M. So I am just expressing this because if this lot is not ours then this is a big problem,” Archival said. — Sly Anthonette E. Baseo, CNU Intern, FPL (FREEMAN)