New legislative building to rise in Bacolod City

BACOLOD: A new legislative building worth P600 million will soon be constructed for the Sangguniang Panlungsod and other offices, Mayor Alfredo Abelardo “Albee” Benitez said on Friday.

Benitez said the planned three-story building will be located at the back of the New Government Center (NGC) and will start construction next year.

Currently, the offices of the city councilors are located on the second floor of the NGC.

The mayor believes that the legislative branch should have its own building.

This will also help decongest the NGC, he said.

Funding for the infrastructure will be taken from the P5-billion loan by the city government from the Development Bank of the Philippines.

During its regular session, the provincial council approved the authority of Benitez to negotiate the terms of the loan.

Meanwhile, the city government has ordered the IPM-Construction and Development Corp. (IPM-CDC) to settle all the backlog in garbage collection in various barangay in the city until Saturday, November 19.

City Administrator Pacifico Maghari 3rd said they are monitoring the garbage collection of the IPM-CDC, the city’s garbage hauler, every day to ensure that all uncollected garbage will be picked up by their trucks.

Maghari said the garbage collection of the IPM-CDC has been delayed since Nov. 13, 2022 because of the poor condition of the road toward the city’s sanitary landfill in Barangay Felisa.

The IPM-CDC should have at least 137 trips a day to address all the backlog, he added.

Maghari noted that the repair of the road already started last Saturday, November 12.

”It’s our target that by Saturday, the IPM-CDC would have already collected all the garbage in the various barangay,” Maghari said.

Earlier, Assistant City Engineer Ephraem Hechanova said that they have already installed boulders along the road leading to the landfill so that the dump trucks could pass through.

”We also have an existing project with an estimated cost of P10 million for the concreting of the road,” Hechanova noted, adding that it was temporarily halted.

This, after the original owner claimed that the city has consumed the portion of the land which is not part of what he has sold, he said.

”While the repair and concreting of the road is ongoing, dump trucks will pass through the road that we use before going to the old city dumpsite,” Hechanova said

Maghari also warned residents, especially in subdivisions, of hiring pedicab or tricycle drivers to illegally dump their garbage in various areas of the city.

The violators will be fined from P2,000 to P2,500 for violation of City Ordinance 531 or the “Anti-Littering Ordinance” and City Ordinance 596 or the ordinance prohibiting the indiscriminate dumping and throwing of garbage and other kind of waste in the public places of Bacolod.