A dilapidated Cebu International Convention Center, built for Cebu’s 2007 hosting of the ASEAN Summit, displays a second 60-foot-wide yellow tarpaulin, this time with the cost of the CICC’s construction and political commentary about it going to waste. Whose message is this? (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)
Who owns 2nd tarp? Gov. Davide says it has his ‘approval’; Rep. Gwen Garcia hits use of CICC for ‘politcal sloganeering’
A huge yellow tarpaulin was added to the giant streamer “NEVER AGAIN…” draping the front of the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC).
This time it spells out the cost of the building and a scathing commentary: “P840,202, 438.05 MILLION OF PEOLE’S MONEY WASTED!!!” about the centerpiece project of former Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia built for the 2007 ASEAN Summit.
Who put it up?
Again, the origin and real actors behind the political statement remain a puzzle.
“The group that mounted it will meet me on Wednesday in my office. We’ll let them explain,” said Gov. Hilario Davide III last night by phone.
He admitted that he’s never met the group before but that the “Cebuanos for Good Governance and Development” had “my implicit approval” to modify the banner because they share the same anti-corruption advocacy.
“I told reporters last week when we toured the CICC that it would be good to mention how much was spent for the building. I guess they (the group) took my suggestion,” he told CDN.
Davide said he was told the private group was about to launch an anti-corruption campaign, but he didn’t have details.
Installation of the two-story-high tarps required special access in the CICC compound where guards are posted by the Cebu provincial government.
Cebu Daily News photo editor Tonee Despojo noticed the additional banner yesterday and took a photo.
The new tarp is neatly attached below the first yellow streamer.
Two local experts in the billboard industry told CDN the installation looked “professionally done”.
It would require scaffolds and a team of personnel to haul up very heavy tarps, and stretch it across the 60-foot-wide display with a height of 20 feet.
“Someone from the outdoor advertising industry or construction must have done that. That’s a billboard, not a streamer,” said the source, noting the extra large dimensions.
The business owner was exasperated to see the billboard, saying it raised “ethical questions” about the installation and its provocative political message.
Outdoor advertising is regulated, said the source, requiring permits from the Office of the Building Official and prior submission of designs to the Advertising Standards Council in Manila, including proper identification of the owner — that is, if you are a legitimate operator.
Two weeks earlier on October 26, when reporters asked Governor Davide about the first yellow billboard “NEVER AGAIN….” covering part of the facade of the CICC, he said, “We still don’t know who put it there. We are trying to find out.”
(“Never again” refers to the post-Edsa battlecry not to allow the Philippines to repeat its experience of dictatorship and human rights violations under President Marcos’ martial law regime. The slogan and the color yellow is also identified with the two Aquino administrations of Corazon and son Benigno III.)
Davide’s office later released a letter dated October 26 sent by a group called the Cebuanos for Good Governance and Development signed by Mariel Kay Estrada as lead convenor.
A closer look at the letter shows that it didn’t seek permission from the Capitol to install the billboard, but refers to it as already done.
“To dramatize our sentiments against corruption, we mounted a streamer in Cebu International Convention Center (CICC), an establishment that, as we know, is among the modern monument (sic) tainted with corruption allegations and other anomalies,” read the letter addressed to Provincial Administrator Mark Tolentino.
The organization’s name and that of Mariel Kay Estrada are not familiar to local media outlets, neither is the group an accredited NGO of the province.
Davide, who has called the CICC a “monument of corruption” since his 2013 campaign, said he would keep the tarp there as part of “freedom of speech” and because it jives with his campaign for good governance.
The CICC is the subject of an ongoing Ombudsman investigation.
In 2012, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales upgraded the fact-finding to a formal investigation of Governor Garcia and six Capitol officials, not for overpricing, but for giving “undue advantage” to a private contractor, WT Construction, for undertaking extra work to finish the CICC without a public bidding.
SLOGANEERING
Rep. Garcia yesterday called the CICC banner “a malicious political ploy to exploit the historical building for their political sloganeering.”
In a statement, she called the governor several names: “Either bakakon , way kalibutan or inutil.” (a liar, clueless or useless.)
“And he said he had no idea who put that up. That new banner shows that the present administration has been lying all along, or is totally inept, or worse, a bunch of fools who are clueless about what’s going on,” she said.
She has repeatedly criticized Davide for “neglect” with his refusal to repair the CICC, after it was damaged during the 2013 Supertyphoon Yolanda and the Cebu earthquake.
“Is he gonna call for an investigation on the second banner, too? I wonder when he will call for an investigation of himself,” she added.
Garcia said the new banner was meant to divert attention from the Capitol’s plan to demolish a “heritage building”, the quake-damaged BAEX annex inside the Capitol compound and build a high-rise structure. (See related story:Gov says consultancy projects ‘above board’)
Her brother Winston, who is challenging Davide for the governorship in 2016, said he wasn’t too bothered about the yellow billboard, and would use the slogan “Never Again” in his own campaign to refer to Governor Davide being an official no Cebuano should vote for again because he hasn’t done much in infrastructure or programs to improve the lives of provincemates.
Related Stories:Davide won’t order removal of banner at CICC
Garcia on the CICC’s Yellow Billboard
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