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Saturday, April 05, 2003
New CH building lacks ECC
By Ramon Jaluag
OPPOSITION members of the Talisay City Council were “shocked” to know that the proposed City Hall now undergoing construction in Barangay Lawa-an 2 has no environmental compliance certificate (ECC).
They also found out that the slaughterhouse complex, which is also being constructed in Barangay Mojon, has not been issued an ECC by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Fines
Failure to secure an ECC before project implementation exposes the owner of the twin undertakings, the Talisay City Government in this case, to a P50,000 penalty for each violation.
The lack of ECCs for two of the biggest infrastructure projects being implemented by the administration of Mayor Eduardo Gullas only surfaced last Thursday during the regular session of the City Council.
At that session, Councilor Emil Go, chairman of the infrastructure committee, filed a resolution endorsing the ECC application for the City Hall project.
The filing of the resolution, which was made more than two months after actual work on the project was started, “baffled” Councilors Petronilo Empaces, Sabe-niano Abatayo and Serrie Restauro.
The three councilors, together with Vice Mayor Lani Abarquez, had objected to the project since it entailed transferring the current seat of government from Poblacion to Lawa-an 2 without the requisite public hearing.
Disbelief
Empaces, an engineer, said he could not believe that City Hall planners could have missed such a very vital matter.
Maybe the planners thought that because the two projects are financed by the City Government, the ECC requirement could be taken for granted, he noted.
But Empaces said this is a grievous mistake and a costly one at that since Talisay City will be liable to pay total fines of P100,000.
Abarquez, who led two walkouts from the council’s session last year in trying to derail approval of the budget for the undertaking, described the “error” as lamentable.
“City Hall should set the example and not be a violator of the law,” Abarquez said.
But Go downplayed the lack of ECCs for the two projects.
He had learned that in other cities of Cebu like Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu and Cebu, “urgent” government projects are immediately implemented even while ECC applications are still being processed.
Not intentional
Go said the failure to secure the ECC was not intentional, describing it as just an “inadvertence.”
City Planning and Development Coordinator Christine Homez, who is supposed to be the official responsible for the project planning, refused to issue a statement when sought for comment yesterday.
For her part, City Attorney Aurora Econg said the responsibility of securing the ECCs for the two projects falls on the contractors.
Econg said this was explicitly stated in the contracts covering the undertakings.
Willy Te of WT Construction and Antonio Bernardo of AVM Bernardo Engineering Inc. were not immediately available for comment.
The City Hall project costs a total of P117 million, excluding the P110-million price of the lot, while the slaughterhouse complex was contracted at P50 million.
WT Construction, to whom the City Hall project was awarded, was issued the notice to proceed last December yet but actual work only began last February.
(April 5, 2003 issue)
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