THE Cebu City Council, in two resolutions sponsored by Minority Floor Leader Nestor Archival Sr., invited Mayor Michael Rama to its regular session of October 4 (2023) for him and his “team” to “shed light” on the joint venture of the City Government and Expedition Construction Corp. to develop the Inayawan landfill and Pond A at South Road Properties. Surprise, surprise to the councilors: Rama showed up.
Many people watching him speak must have found it difficult, as I did, to get what he meant but the City Government-run Cebu City News & Information (CCNI) summed it up thus in a news feed on the same day: The mayor asked the City Council to cure the defects of the joint venture agreement, which it already approved in October 2021. “Peruse and get to the bottom of it.” He “cannot be the only one to tackle it.” The City Council needs to intervene, he said.
THREE POINTS. Mayor Rama didn’t give the information Councilor Archival had outlined. He didn’t enlighten the Sanggunian on the basic purposes of his appearance, namely:
[1] to give a status report on the project, which hasn’t moved for about 15 months already since the JVA was signed;
[2] to solve the problem of ownership of the Inayawan landfill as the City Government, Councilor Archival noted, the City doesn’t own it; and
[3] to review the sharing of the proceeds, which according to Archival’s estimate, could result in income losses to the City amounting to P135.8 billion.
Archival prefaced the mayor’s speech with a summary of what the Sanggunian wanted to know, a reminder of sorts, highlighting on the three issues that prompted the local legislature’s September 27 invitation.
As it turned out, the mayor tossed back the issues at the councilors: Correct them as we did the Carbon Market deal.
“WHA’HAPPENED’ has been on the mind of a number of councilors, particularly Kons Archival. Where did the excitement go, that of Brian Paz, son of Simon Paz, chairman and chief executive officer of Expedition, who January 27, 2022 publicly said, “We’re excited to deliver to the people of Cebu City” the promised facilities: the conversion of the 15-hectare landfill and the 60-hectare Pond A at SRP into the site of a business, recreation and medical center, which would be, they trumpeted, world-class. They were then “finalizing the detailed engineering design.”
[RELATED: Seares: Cebu City to lose P135.8 billion from joint venture on Inayawan landfill-SRP Pond A, October 4, 2023]
So what’s happening to the project? Mayor Mike didn’t know or, if he did, he wasn’t ready to tell the councilors.
WHAT HE ACTUALLY TALKED ABOUT. Out of a nine-paragraph speech -- billed as “the most important” item in the agenda and delivered towards the end of the session -- the mayor told the City Council:
[] The length of his service as councilor, vice mayor and mayor of the city. He came because of “transparency, accountability, good governance and rule of law.” He loves his work as a public servant. Proof? That morning he woke up at 4:30 a.m. and worked with Councilor Franklyn Ong on the flood problem.
[] The Sanggunian, through resolutions, wants to know what happened to the Expedition joint venture. Because of that, “as your mayor I have to get into and peruse and go to the bottom.” The councilors, he said, can also “peruse, go to the bottom and be more transparent and accountable and let the public be aware…”
Does that mean they, including the mayor, aren’t familiar with the terms and conditions of the contract and Mayor Rama is now reading the JVA and asking councilors to read the agreement? Maybe that too, but this time the reading is to find ways to correct the defects.
He said he was asking for the City Council’s “intervention.” According to the City Hall media’s interpretation -- because he didn’t categorically say it -- that means the City Council is being asked to find ways to correct the contract’s defects.
[] He had called in a lot of people, mostly lawyers, to study the JVA’s terms, presumably before it was signed, including City Administrator Collin Rosell, SRP’s Bo Varquez, Atty. Jerone Castillo, and even Councilor Archival (who, the mayor joked, was an M.A., “mora’g abogado”). Mayor Rama realized then that he needed “intervention.”
Does that mean that the “intervention” at the time didn’t work and he’s asking the City Council for its “intervention” now?
[] He used terms and references that only those privy to the incidents must know, such as: “almost being sued,” “the discussion and debate at Casino Espanol,” “talked to the principal.” Did the Sanggunian members get it? (As the mayor loves to quip in his speeches, “Nakasabot mo?”)
‘CORRECT, DON’T RESCIND.’ Mayor Rama repeated his often-touted principle of removing defects of a contract instead of rescinding the entire agreement. “I only go for curative, not for rescission, because otherwise who will invest in the City Government?” He doesn’t want a JVA adopted by one administration and later reviewed and reexamined by the succeeding administration.
How about a thorough scrutiny next time before sealing a big-ticket contract -- giving the city’s welfare air-tight safeguards -- so that it can stand any future review? The example of councilors admitting that they hadn’t read the Carbon Market JVA before approving it was “deplorable and pathetic,” as one City Hall former official observed, and now this.
Why didn’t Archival make his computation of the city’s loss before the City Council authorized the mayor to sign? And why hadn't the JV selection committee under the office of the mayor done the math on sharing before it sent the JVA to the Sanggunian? It would seem the bright boys of the city’s would-be partner are always brighter than City Hall’s bright boys.
NO INTERPELLATION. No councilor dared to ask the mayor a question, maybe because of his request in the last lines of his speech, before saying “thank you”: “Come on, don’t interpellate me. My morning has been too hard, my afternoon has been too much but I love you all. That’s why I came, before all of you.”
Saying he just worked hard for the City and he loves them all. Enough for the councilors to decide not to ask. The councilors may have to tap other sources of information to know the real score on “how the Expedition expedited.”