FOR not endorsing the budget to start building three underpass projects in Cebu City, some officials of the Central Visayas Regional Development Council (RDC) were described as incompetent by Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
But RDC co-chair Kenneth Cobonpue and infrastructure development committee head Glenn Soco said they only want to improve the poor planning for projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 and want decisions to be based on data and experts’ recommendations.
Who’s in a better position to identify which projects DPWH should prioritize? That’s one of the questions that surfaced after a walkout from last Friday’s RDC meeting by Cebu City Rep. Raul del Mar, the mayor’s political ally.
“They’re not helping anything. Those guys don’t know anything. They have bad intentions and they have no competence, period,” Osmeña told reporters in his news conference yesterday.
Neither he nor Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III attended last Friday’s meeting.
Traffic lessons
In a press conference yesterday, Cobonpue said it is important that the government learns the lessons from heavy traffic caused by an ongoing underpass construction on N. Bacalso Ave., a DPWH project.
Cobonpue, who assumed co-chairmanship of the RDC in March 2017, pointed out that flyovers and underpasses wouldn’t work well or improve the flow of traffic, without the affected intersections being improved first.
He and Soco both represent the private sector in the RDC, which is supposed to review plans of regional agencies, as well as review and endorse projects of agencies and local government units as required by the Investment Coordinating Committee of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board.
Del Mar walked out of the RDC meeting last March 16 after the council decided to endorse only the funding for feasibility studies of the three proposed underpass projects, instead of a larger budget of about P16 billion for actual construction. The feasibility studies were projected to cost more than P900 million.
Two other underpasses Del Mar had proposed were not endorsed at all.
“We will get to those underpasses, but first let’s improve the intersections. We provide technical details when we answer. So who’s incompetent? We have asked for data, but they have not provided that yet,” Cobonpue said.
‘Block, block, block’
Osmeña questioned why the RDC had to delay its endorsement of the underpass budget when there is already an ongoing feasibility study for it. He said that some RDC 7 officials just want to block the projects and associated them with Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino.
Osmeña also questioned what projects the current and previous RDC 7, including the one chaired by his predecessor, former mayor Michael Rama, have done.
“What have I done? I got the Bohol circumferential road, I got the second Mactan Bridge, the widening of V. Rama, Talisay Fish Market, Mandaue Market. I built A.S. Fortuna, I put the road around Mactan. That’s my project. I built F. Cabahug, I built P. del Rosario, I was chairman of RDC. Them? Block, block, block,” Osmeña said.
Osmeña served as RDC chairman during his 1992-1995 term.
For his part, Governor Davide said he believes the rift between Del Mar and the RDC can be mended. Davide admitted he was not present during last week’s meeting as he was attending an activity in Alegria.
He said he thinks the misunderstanding between the two parties can easily be settled through dialogue, and that the RDC 7 remains a vital step in ensuring that important projects in the region get done.
He pointed out that the RDC 7’s approval is needed before NEDA endorses projects to the national government for funding and implementation. (With JKV)