Vice Mayor Garcia on Rama’s CBRT complaint vs Gwen: It does not reflect council’s view

Cebu City Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia. | Screengrab from Cebu City News and Information

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Roughly two weeks have passed since City Mayor Michael Rama initiated the process to suspend Cebu Provincial Governor Gwendolyn Garcia over the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (CBRT) issue.

City Vice Mayor  Raymond Alvin Garcia has recently entered the discussion, in which he has made it clear that any actions taken by the mayor “do not necessarily reflect” the stance of the city council.

READ: Rama asks Malacañang to suspend Gwen over CBRT dispute

Vice Mayor Alvin Garcia acknowledged that he might respect Mayor Michael Rama’s decision to file administrative complaints against Governor Gwen Garcia. However, he clarified that this decision does not represent the sentiment of the city council as a whole.

Garcia said that the city council had already taken an official stance on the matter on March 6, which was to resolve the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit or the CBRT dispute between the mayor and the governor through a formal dialogue.

While he recognized the mayor’s prerogative to take such action, he expressed a preference for resolving the issue through discussion.

“Ako lang is (For me), in a nutshell, I respect the executive department [because this is] part of his mandate as the mayor of the city of Cebu. [However,] that particular action does not necessarily reflect the sentiment of the Sangguniang Panglungsod because we already have a stand on the matter last March 6,” Garcia said in an interview on April 3.

However, it can be recalled that Rama firmly expressed that he was not open to engaging in a dialogue with the Capitol.

He said that he had already made a statement regarding the issue and emphasized that the CBRT was a Cebu City government project, and “not a provincial project.”

“No… I made a statement already that the project is [really] a Cebu City project, not a provincial project. Why should I be meeting them?,” he stressed.

Subsequently, on March 20, Rama filed a legal complaint before the Office of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against the Cebu Provincial Governor Gwen Garcia after the governor issued a cease and desist order to the CBRT project, in which she cited heritage concerns as grounds for it.

READ: CBRT project faces uncertainty amid mismanagement, land disputes

The mayor asserted that Garcia had overstepped her authority, committing acts of abuse, oppression, and grave misconduct.

He argued that she lacked jurisdiction to interfere with Cebu City’s affairs, stating that as a Highly Urbanized City (HUC), Cebu City operates independently from the province.

The administrative complaint was instigated when Governor Garcia issued a memorandum to halt the ongoing CBRT construction near the Capitol building on February 27, 2024.

In memorandum No. 16-2024 that was issued by the governor to the Cebu BRT Team and contractor, Hunan Road and Bridge Construction Group Ltd., it directed them to cease civil works on province-owned lots along Osmeña Boulevard.

The memorandum said that the ongoing construction encroached upon buffer zones of the Cebu Provincial Capitol and Fuente Osmeña Circle.

When questioned by reporters regarding the mayor’s complaint, Gwen Garcia simply responded with “no comment.”

Meanwhile, when the governor issued the memorandum on February 27, the city council of Cebu, headed by Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia, resolved to halt the ongoing civil works of the CBRT project at the Cebu Provincial Capitol.

They agreed with the governor, citing concerns that the construction poses a visual intrusion on the iconic building.

Vice Mayor Garcia brought forth the motion, urging the Office of the Building Official (OBO) to issue a cease-and-desist order against the construction of a bus station, which is part of the CBRT project.

This motion was approved by the city council during its regular session on February 28.