REP. Antonio Cuenco yesterday denied telling Rep. Eduardo Gullas during a July 2007 meeting that he and Rep. Raul del Mar already convinced Mayor Tomas Osmeña to endorse the Light Rail Transit (LRT).

Cuenco (Cebu City, south) instead suggested that Gullas (Cebu Province, 1st district) really consult the City officials and convince them of the merits of the LRT, and have del Mar (Cebu City, north) act as intermediary.

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Del Mar was unavailable to comment yesterday.

Cuenco said he would not have been insulted had Gullas consulted the City officials on the LRT project even if the two Cebu City congressmen were co-authors of House Bill (HB) 7479, which proposed the LRT for Cebu.

Gullas, the other day, said he filed HB 7479 as early as July 9, 1996, with del Mar and Cuenco as co-authors.

Every year for the next 13 years, Gullas said, the bill was filed again with the two Cebu City congressmen consistently serving as co-authors.

Consulting the City Council would have been an insult to del Mar and Cuenco, he said.

“We won’t feel insulted. We will even help out,” Cuenco told Sun.Star.

In answer to the charge that the City Government was not consulted on his LRT project, Gullas said there was no need for it. He said Cuenco and del Mar were there to represent Cebu City as co-authors of the bill.

Gullas said that while Osmeña was initially against the LRT, del Mar and Cuenco convinced the mayor to support it during their July 31, 2007 meeting.

That meeting, Gullas said, was also attended by Rep. Augusto Baculio, House committee on transportation chairman; Cebu City Planning and Development Coordinator Paul Villarete; Undersecretary Guiling Mamondiong of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC); engineers Joel Magbanua and Rene Bañares of the DOTC; and representatives of the cities of Talisay and Mandaue.

But Cuenco yesterday said that as far as he is concerned, he did not say such a thing.

“Wala mi magsulti ingon ana. My suggestion now is, why don’t Gullas ask del Mar to act as go-between? He and Tommy do not see eye to eye, but del Mar can act as mediator to solve the impasse,” Cuenco said.

The City Council rejected the LRT during its regular session last Wednesday.

It cited flaws in the way the $600-million project was proposed, particularly because it was made without the consensus of the city’s officials and constituents.

Gullas had said Osmeña actually did not object to the LRT as a means of mass transport in Cebu, as evidenced by his May 6, 2008 letter to the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).

Osmeña, though, said he did not endorse the LRT in the 2008 letter Gullas referred to, as Villarete was just being polite in not categorically refusing the LRT in that letter.

The mayor last week drafted another letter categorically telling the DOTC that he prefers that Bus Rapid Transit over the US$600-million LRT-Mono Rail Transit proposed for Metro Cebu. (RHM)