BAGUIO CITY – The local government and the Cordillera office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-CAR) will be reconciling their designs for the proposed rehabilitation and repair of the city-owned Baguio Convention Center (BCC) before the conduct of the public bidding for the P180 million initially earmarked by the agency for the said project.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said technical personnel of the DPWH-CAR and the local government must work on the reconciliation of the design of the city’s premier convention facility so the bidding process could be done the soonest for the utilization of allocated funds.
Earlier, the local government called on veteran designers and architects to help its technical personnel in coming out with a design for the proposed repair and rehabilitation of the 40-year old infrastructure after DPWH was able to include the amount of P180 million for its initial repair in its proposed budget next year.
“We have to reconcile the prepared designs for the project to guarantee the proper utilization of the allocated funds. We need to agree on certain aspects of the project so that we will be able to use the funds instead of the same being reverted to the national coffers due to its non-utilization,” Domogan stressed.
Councilor Maria Mylen Victoria G. Yaranon, Chairperson of the City Council Committee on Public Works, questioned DPWH-CAR for preparing their own design for the project when it was agreed earlier that it would be the technical personnel of the city with the support of the private sector who will prepare the design to serve as the basis for the agency to bid out the project.
She explained, under ethical standards the DPWH-CAR technical personnel should have brought back to the local government’s design team the supposed revisions in the design for finalization prior to the plans being submitted to the agency for the bidding process. This is to prevent the problems of having to reconcile the designs due to the existence of two conflicting plans.
Aside from reconciling the designs for the convention center rehabilitation project, the DPWH-CAR and local government technical personnel will have to agree on what aspects of the plan will be covered by the available funds before the schedule of the bidding will be provided by the agency.
Domogan remains optimistic that DPWH will provide additional funds to complete the rehabilitation and repair of the convention center if the earmarked funds are not be able to complete the facelift of the facility.
The local government acquired the ownership of the Baguio Convention Center from the State-owned Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to the tune of a total of P316 million for it to have its own convention facility.
By Dexter A. See
