CCMC Phase 4 construction ‘canceled’ until P1B budget gets okay

CCMC file photo.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Administrator Floro Casas Jr., has confirmed that the construction for the Phase 4 Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) has in fact been canceled on May 2021.

Casas said in a press conference on July 2, 2o21 that they canceled the construction because the city planned to increase the budget for the CCMC completion.

Mayor Edgardo Labella has proposed an additional P1 billion budget for the completion of the CCMC in Supplemental Budget No. 1 (SB1), which had yet to be tackled by the City Council this month.

The initial budget was only P500 million and although the bidding was almost completed, Casas said the mayor decided it would save more time and funds for the city to rebid the entire project with the additional budget to one contractor.

“Tinood na siya. Ang Phase 4, we decided nga icancel nalang kay sa Phase 1 to 3 nakakita tag challenges nga lain-lain ang contractor nga nagdala. Grabe ang challenges,” he said.

(It is true. We decided to cancel [the contract] for Phase 4 because in Phase 1 to 3, we saw the challenges of having different contractors for the projects. The challenges are great.)

“Since naay giinclude nga additional P1 billion sa Supplemental Budget, nakadecide ang Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) nga paabuton na lang siya aron ang completion sa CCMC ato na siyag iaward sa usa ka qualified contractor,” said Casas.

(Since we will include an additional P1 billion in the Supplemental Budget, the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) that we will just wait for that so that the completion of the CCMC would only be awarded to one qualified contractor.)

For the first phases of the CCMC construction, different contractors were handling the project contributing to the delay of more than five years to the hospital’s completion.

The construction is not terminated, only deferred until the P1 billion budget is approved by the City Council, and this can be used to pay for the completion of the remaining floors of the CCMC, bringing the total funds to P1.5 billion.

Currently, only three floors have completed construction with the second and third floor still to be installed with interior facilities while the fourth to sixth floors still under construction.

The city plans a 10-story facility for CCMC, of which, as of now, the last floors have yet to be constructed.

For Casas, this is the best move for the city as this would become an assurance that once the P1.5 billion budget will be bid out to one contractor, that contractor will have no reason but to complete the project.

This is also an attempt to fulfill the promise of Labella that the CCMC will be completed or partially completed under his term.

Neither Labella nor Casas addressed the allegations that the mayor has “lied” in his statements in late May 2021 claiming that the project was about to be awarded to a contractor.

As for the supplemental budget, the mayor considers requesting the City Council to hold a special session to tackle the SB1.

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