BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan urged the technical personnel of the Cordillera office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-CAR) and the local government’s technical working group (TWG) to immediately reconcile their differences relative to the on-going rehabilitation of the rehabilitation of the city-owned Baguio Convention Center (BCC) to avoid unnecessary delays in the completion of the multi-million project so that the facility could be used for the conduct of numerous crowd drawing events.
The local chief executive underscored that what is important is for the DPWH-CAR technical personnel to come out with a technically acceptable reason that will justify the variation in the original plans of the project that resulted to the removal of the mezzanine, escalators and elevator which was earlier aimed at increasing the capacity of the convention facility.
“We do not want untoward delays in the implementation of the project that is why we requested the contractor to proceed with the works that are not the subject of controversy while the DPWH-CAR and the local government’s TWG are ironing out their differences on the questioned items that were removed from the original plans that was earlier bidded out,’ Domogan stressed.
He said that he will the matter of resolving the prevailing issues on the BCC rehabilitation project to the members of the technical teams of the DPWH-CAR and the local government because they are the ones who are aware of the technical aspect of the project considering that what is important is for the project to be completed on time and pursuant to what had been earlier agreed upon on how the facility will look like apart from considering the variations that were done so as not to compromise the structural integrity of the facility.
According to him, the technical personnel of the agency and the local government should discuss the pertinent issues that caused the adoption of the variation in the presence of the structural engineers commissioned by the city so that technical matters concerning the project will be intelligently discussed and whatever acceptable solutions and recommendations will be considered in the remaining works on the facility.
DPWH-CAR personnel defended the adoption of the variation in the plans for the project because the local government was not able to present the original plans of the convention center when it was built in the late 1970s that should have supposed to serve as their basis in determining the safe areas where the foundation of the mezzanine, escalator and elevator could be erected.
However, the members of the local government TWG argued that the implementation of the variation of the original plans of the project was not done in consultation with them considering that the city will eventually be the end user of the facility, thus, the need for the DPWH-CAR to go back to the original plans for the project that will incorporate the mezzanine, escalator and elevator for a bigger capacity of the convention center.
The rehabilitation of the city-owned convention facility started in March 2018 and will commence sometime in February 2019 pursuant to the approved plans and specifications of the multi-million project.
By Dexter A. See