FRANK MALILONG:

There is now a concrete timeline for the construction of the proposed Metro Cebu Expressway

The Cebu Provincial Capitol will construct a new building for the Bogo Provincial Hospital at no cost to the City Government. The bulk of the P230-million budget for the project comes from the national government. The groundbreaking was supposed to take place later this month but has been postponed to early next year. The hospital serves mostly residents of the fourth district. Also, there is now a concrete timeline for the construction of the proposed Metro Cebu Expressway, Cebu Daily News reported yesterday. The Department of Public Works and Highways will start surveying next month the lands that will be affected by the 74-kilometer road construction. Both good news, according to Malilong.

Finally and for a change, some good news. One. The province will soon construct a new building for the Bogo Provincial Hospital, according to SunStar Cebu. The additional structure will cost P230 million, the bulk of which comes from the national government. The groundbreaking was supposed to take place later this month, Bogo City Mayor Carlo Martinez told me by phone yesterday but they have been notified that the ceremony has been postponed to early next year.

The hospital sits on a two-hectare property and serves mostly residents of the fourth district. Martinez expressed elation over the hospital’s expansion and thanked Gov. Junjun Davide for honoring his promise to make the delivery of health services the cornerstone of his administration. “We’re just bystanders here but very interested ones,” the mayor said. “We will not be spending single centavo for the new building, thanks the provincial government.”

Two. There is now a concrete timeline for the construction of the proposed Metro Cebu Expressway, Cebu Daily News reported yesterday. The new 74-kilometer road will link Naga and Danao, cutting travel time between the two cities to roughly an hour, according to the report. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will start surveying next month the lands that will be affected by the road construction.

The expressway was originally estimated to cost P54 billion but the local DPWH office said that the amount could go down to only about P20 billion because the value of the lands “might have gone down.”

Now, that’s really an unrealistic expectation, if not an outright miscalculation.Land values seldom go down, that’s why some businessmen go “land-banking” for investment. Let’s stick to our original estimates, gentlemen. Of course, if we can acquire the lands for less, that would be welcome.

I anticipate the road right of way acquisition process to eventually involve the courts. Let’s just pray that no judge in Cebu will restrain/enjoin the government from taking possession of a property that is being expropriated as a few have done in the past. Let’s also hope that DPWH engineers will not find protesting environmentalists hugging the trees that they have to cut because “the trees have life.” Otherwise, we will not be able to use the expressway by 2022 as planned.

Three. It’s trending. Former Naga City Mayor Val Chiong said he has only a faint idea of what the term means and it is that their boardwalk is being talked about on social media. The buzz has resulted in hundreds of people visiting the city daily.

One of them was Kenneth Cobonpue, the world-famous designer, whose help Val and daughter Kristine Vanessa, the incumbent mayor, sought to rehabilitate the old town plaza. Cobonpue, however, went a step farther, proposing to redesign the boardwalk. Last week, the city’s lawyers were already drafting the contract between Naga and Cobonpue.

Things are really looking up in the once sleepy town that, as Val laughingly reminded us last week, used to be associated only with wakwak and aswang.