DPWH, city gov’t at odds on BCC project; specs changed

By Dexter A. See 

BAGUIO CITY – The rehabilitation of the Baguio Convention Center in this summer capital is still mired in controversy.

This, made Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan urge technical personnel of the Cordillera office of the Dept. of Public Works and Highways and local government to reconcile their differences on the ongoing rehabilitation of the city-owned facility to avoid delays in completion of the multi-million project so it could be used for crowd-drawing events.

The mayor said it is important is for the DPWH-CAR to come out with a technically acceptable reason that will justify change of original plans of the project that resulted to the removal of the mezzanine, escalators and elevator which was earlier aimed at increasing the capacity of the convention facility.

“We do not want untoward delays in the implementation of the project that is why we requested the contractor to proceed with the works that are not the subject of controversy while the DPWH-CAR and the local government’s TWG are ironing out their differences on the questioned items that were removed from the original plans that was earlier bid out,’ Domogan said.

 He said that he will leave the matter of resolving the prevailing issues on the BCC rehabilitation project to the members of the technical teams of the DPWH-CAR and the local government because they are the ones who are aware of the technical aspect of the project.

He added it is important is for the project to be completed on time and pursuant to what had been earlier agreed upon on how the facility will look like apart from considering the variations that were done so as not to compromise the structural integrity of the facility.

DPWH-CAR personnel defended the change of project specifications  because the local government was not able to present the original plans of the convention center when it was built in the late 1970s that should have supposed to serve as their basis in determining the safe areas where the foundation of the mezzanine, escalator and elevator could be erected.

However, the local government TWG argued that the implementation of the variation of the original plans of the project was not done in consultation with them considering that the city will eventually be the end user of the facility, thus, the need for the DPWH-CAR to go back to the original plans for the project that will incorporate the mezzanine, escalator and elevator for a bigger capacity of the convention center.

The rehabilitation of the city-owned convention facility started in March 2018 and will commence sometime in February 2019 pursuant to the approved plans and specifications of the multi-million project.