[] BOPK Councilor Mary Ann de los Santos, who said the CCMC project has been her advocacy since 2015, called last August 2024 for transparency and oversight, the Sanggunian clearly dissatisfied with information they've been getting.
De los Santos doesn't just want the new building completed, she tells city officials, "Let's do it right" and asks that "past wrongs" be corrected.
To Mary Ann, the accomplishments in the construction have yet to be made clear through more executive sessions.
AFTER 6 SESSIONS, ANOTHER ONE COMING UP. The Cebu City Council, looking for several months now into the construction of the 10-story Cebu City Medical Center, must not have received the information it needs.
Last year, the City Council held a total of six sessions, all in the second half of 2024: namely, on July 24, August 15, September 26, October 29, November 7, and December 2. The seventh executive session will be on January 22, 2025.
The serial inquiries were set off by a privileged speech of minority councilor Mary Ann de los Santos last June 26, 2024, which sought information on (a) the project's status, (b) why the City Council was not involved in terminating contracts and substitute-contractor talks, and (c) why the councilors have not been given the detailed plan for completion.
UPDATE ON CONSTRUCTION, RAMA PROMISE. Bidding to finish the third-to-sixth floor was scheduled for December 23 to 27, 2024, as announced last December 18 by Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia. The public is not yet told what happened.
Dr. Peter Mancao, chief of the hospital, told me Tuesday, January 7, 2025, "three floors are done, four floors for finishing work and three more floors to be constructed." Last January 31, 2024, Mancao was quoted on the work progress at the time: "Construction of vertical (8th floor to 10th floor) and horizontal development (4th floor to 7th floor) was to start" that February. The target then was to complete the project "within one year."
Earlier, on December 18, 2023, then mayor Rama promised during a City Hall flag ceremony speech the 10th floor would be finished by February 2024, "without a single centavo" spent by the local government, obviously tapping donations he had collected from private donors.
'NA-BLIND ANG CITY COUNCIL' on the CCMC project, which was started in 2014 during the administration of then mayor Michael Rama, after the city hospital was severely damaged by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck Bohol and Cebu on October 15, 2013.
The City Council later appropriated P514.97 million for its first phase. Since then, the near-total shutout on information has been seen in current complaints of some councilors.
They range from not knowing clearly the work accomplished, the manner of terminating contracts, payments not made to contractors, the money already paid out so far, and, lately, the funds raised from private persons and entities.
CUENCO BLUNTLY SUMMED UP RESULT OF PROBE. How do the councilors describe the result of last six consecutive sessions devoted to the CCMC issue?
Councilor James Cuenco told me Saturday, January 4, 2025: "We are nowhere near the end as when we first began." Cuenco's list of what didn't go well:
-- Resource persons appeared before the City Council “not all at once but in splinters.” Many of those invited to the first executive session didn't show up, offering a lot of excuses.
-- Some resource persons were no longer connected with City Hall and "the mystery continues."
-- "Extremely difficult to piece together the puzzle," as there were three different admissions and the City Council couldn't reach the people who could sort them out.
-- There's a new majority in the City Council.
MARY ANN'S TAKE. Councilor de los Santos said that during the first two executive sessions, the department heads concerned didn't attend personally, sending only representatives who apparently didn't have the needed facts.
Kons Mary Ann told me last January 4 that most of the questions were "unsatisfactorily answered."
The councilor -- who's not returning to the City Council in July as she's running for the city north seat in the House of Representatives -- said that some resource persons also couldn't produce documents to provide fuller information.
Thus, the need to call for one more executive session after another, until the total would reach seven.
MANY CONTRACTORS, MORE COMPLICATIONS. The project has had more than the usual number of contractors for a local government project.
Phases 1 and 2 had C.E. Padilla Construction Inc. (Cepci). Phase 3 -- Garmy Philwide Builders. Phase 4 -- M.E. Sicat Construction Inc., and phase 1.1: C.E. Padilla or Cepci.
There were at least one suspension of work and one termination of contract on the construction of the city hospital:
-- In 2016, before the end of the 2013-2016 term, then acting mayor Margot Osmeña ordered suspension of work at CCMC because of lack of building permits, among others. Her husband Tomas, however, after winning the May 2016 election, chose to stick it out with C.E. Padilla, despite its "23 percent negative slippage," seeing more delays if the City would replace the contractor.
-- In November 2022, then mayor Rama publicized the termination of the contract with M.E. Sicat and ordered a review of the contract, "initially signed" during the term of predecessor Edgardo Labella. As of February 4, 2023, Rama's signature was still to be affixed to end the P900-million contract with Sicat for phase 4, covering eighth floor to 10th floor.
THE P205M PRIVATE DONATIONS ISSUE has apparently contributed to the mess of the multibillion-peso project.
Then mayor Rama raised about P250 million from private donors in the Philippines and abroad to finish the building. The money didn't go to the City Government coffers but
-- under an agreement among the City Government, CCMC and Dakay Construction and Development Corp.
-- P100 million was placed in a trust fund managed by the Cebu Medical Society "for all fair and reasonable expenses" aside from other donations for the CCMC project.
Aside from the legal questions regarding the tripartite agreement, there were issues as to its wisdom and propriety.
Amid all that, how much has the City Council been involved in formulating and adopting policy of the City Government?
EVEN THE CITY COUNCIL IS DIVIDED ON ISSUES the city hospital construction has created. The reason is "the new majority" cited by Councilor Cuenco. The City Council majority now obviously is no longer the same as the majority under then mayor Rama since he and Partido Barug won the 2022 elections.
If Rama was the baton leader of Barug in the Sanggunian before, he no longer is, a political development that "evolved last week," Cuenco told me.
The current match shows that: Rama's Barug-Bag-Ong Sugbo vs Garcia's Kusug-Panaghiusa vs Nestor Archival-Tomas Osmeña's BOPK. Barug alliance with Kusug and Panaghiusa is already in shambles, with a number of incumbent city councilors with Barug defecting to and seeking reelection under the new fusion of Garcia's group with Joey Daluz's group.
[To come: What specifically do the councilors want more from the City Council "investigation" of the CCMC project?]
