Capitol, WT closer to sealing P1.2-B deal for building

It will be up to the Cebu Provincial Board to authorize Gov. Hilario Davide III to enter into a contract with WT Construction Inc. for the construction of the P1.2-billion Provincial Resource Center.

The governor has approved the recommendation of the technical working group (TWG) of the bids and awards committee (BAC) to award the contract to WTC.

Jone Sepe, BAC vice chairman, said the executive department had already endorsed the documents needed to approve WTC’s contract last Monday, Dec. 4.

Davide had said that WTC qualified as the lowest calculated and responsive bidder for the project.

But Sepe said he is not sure if their endorsement will be discussed during the PB’s regular session on Monday, Dec. 10.

Last month, WTC passed the post-qualification process after it provided the BAC-TWG with complete technical, legal and financial documents on its capability to proceed with the project.

Denial

Sepe, though, refused to comment on the recent letter sent by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) to the Capitol.

In a letter to Provincial Administrator Mark Tolentino, NHCP chairman Rene Escalante questioned why the Capitol proceeded with the bidding of the project without submitting a new development plan to the commission.

The NHCP is concerned that the Provincial Resource Center’s design will affect the heritage value of the old Provincial Capitol building.

But Sepe denied the allegations made by Rep. Gwen Garcia (Cebu, 3rd district) that Capitol officials are fast-tracking the project since next year will be an election year.

“The project was conceptualized in 2014. The following year, we hired consultants to look into it. It just so happened that it took them a while to come up with the building’s design. There was a process we had to go through. This didn’t happen overnight,” Sepe said in Cebuano. /