Thursday, April 19, 2007 Editorials: Not like the lampposts controversy
THAT those who were noisy about the decorative lamps issue are now training their guns on the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) is not surprising.
The CICC is the most controversial project undertaken by the administration of Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia and critics hounded it throughout its construction last year.
When the issue was not about the appropriateness of the spending, it was about whether it would be built on time or even about the leak in a portion of its roof.
Surprising
It is thus surprising that after the facility was used as venue of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation in January, the CICC was spared from scrutiny until recently.
With the number of critics and this being an election season, Capitol officials probably expected questions on the CICC construction to be raised earlier.
Instead, the decorative lamps purchase was the first to attract public attention among the projects initiated relative to Cebu's hosting of the summit.
Which can be explained by the fact that the lampposts are the more visible and it was easier for people to assess the cost per lamppost and shout overprice.
Still, it was not difficult at that time to predict where the critics will focus next.
Complicated issue
In this sense, businessman Crisologo Saavedra, who questioned the construction of the CICC before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas, is but incidental to the issue.
Had he not done it, other CICC critics would have acted the same way or they would have been prodded to do it by Garcia’s political opponents.
What should be noted in the CICC, though, is that assessing whether the facility is overpriced needs more than just comparing the price of, say, one lamp with another.
A number of contractors were involved in the construction, landscaping, providing the furnishings, etc. that being simplistic won’t work.
Accounting
Objectivity and fairness would have therefore dictated that critics wait until Capitol releases an accounting report before complaining of overpricing.
The problem, however, is that Capitol has not been able to do that for now, giving Saavedra the opening to go to the ombudsman and gain media mileage.
Until the accounting report is released, then, Capitol will have to endure the sniping by its critics.
