The Doña Pepang Heritage Park is nearer to reality as the project to turn the Doña Pepang cemetery into a heritage park breaks ground on Thursday, June 22. | Emmariel Ares
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government is another step closer to realizing the dream of turning the Doña Pepang cemetery into a Doña Pepang Heritage Park.
This is after the Cebu City government broke ground for the heritage project on Thursday, June 22, 2023.
P3M donation for park project
In his speech, Ramil Ayuman, special assistant to the Mayor’s Office who was designated as overseer of the project, announced that the transformation of the park would be at no-cost to the city.
He said that this was because of the donations pledged by various stakeholders.
He added that one of these stakeholders: Lite Ferries Corporation had agreed to raise their donation from P1,000,000 to P3,000,000.
Representatives of Lite Ferries turned over the donation for the project during the groundbreaking ceremony.
“Pasiuna pa lang na. Apan aduna pay katorse ka mga stakeholders nga willing to help finance Doña Pepang Heritage Park so that we can explore, discover and be inspired,” Ayuman said.
(This is the first one. But there are still 14 other stakeholders, who are willing to help finance Doña Pepang Heritage Park so that we can explore, discover and be inspired.)
Doña Pepang Heritage Park project
Ayuman also said that it was in 2014 that the city government received the go-signal for the project to turn the cemetery into a park.
And in October of 2022, Rama gave the instructions to conduct the clearing operation of the Doña Pepang Cemetery in preparation of the conversion project.
The unveiling of the design, ground-breaking, and ribbon-cutting were lead by Mayor Michael Rama and Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia.
Rama to public: Support project
Rama, for his part, urged the citizens to support the project which he first proposed back in 2015.
“Dili ni para ato. Dapat para ni sa mahabilin – leaving a legacy,” he said.
(This is not for us. This should be for those who are left behind — leaving a legacy.)
The original design of the new heritage park was made by Architect Socorro Atega, who also attended the event.
The heritage park project of Mayor Rama was originally scheduled to break ground on June 12, but this was postponed to a later date after the local government received a pledge from a private company.
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