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- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
(SDN) — “Excessive”, lawyer Christian “Ian” Sia declares.
The Php9.6-billion Pasig City Hall Campus plan under the administration of Mayor Vico Sotto continued to get notice for its being even more expensive than the Php8.2-billion starting cost of the four-tower Senate Building now under construction along Chino Roces Avenue, Taguig City, Metro Manila.
Perhaps expectedly, the new Senate Building had also gained unwelcomed notoriety recently as some senators themselves took critical note and balked at its skyrocketing price which was estimated to end up costing Php27 billion. Or more?
Would Sotto’s ambitious pet project suffer the same fate in as much as its cost is concerned, if the plan goes through, for the simple reason that prices of construction materials are almost sure to spike because of inflation, instead of going down?
At the “Kapihan sa Metro East Media Forum” of the PaMaMariSan Risal Press Corps in collaboration with the Pinoy Ako Advocacy Group in Pasig City on Tuesday, July 31, 2024, Sia, a former councilor of the city, was asked about the Pasig City Hall Campus designed by Royal Pineda architectural outfit. He and Cezarah “Ate Sarah” Rowena Discaya, Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of St. Gerrard Construction Charity Foundation, Inc. graced the forum as the inaugural speakers.
Fondly known and regarded as everybody’s Ate Sarah (Sister Sarah), she gamely fielded questions on their family foundation, which has been doing charitable medical missions in the city, as well as outside the city borders, like in Zamboanga City.
Ate Sarah recalled how poor their family was in the past when they really lack money that a brother of her husband Curlee Discaya died because they were not able help financially help him get to a hospital or buy him medicines.
Read: Businessman Curlee Discaya to Mayor Vico Sotto: Reconsider the Php9.6-B Price for Pasig City Hall Campus Complex
She said that when she and her husband businessman-philanthropist Curlee Discaya, another moving hand behind their charity foundation, achieved success from scratch, they made a mission to help whatever they can for the poor.
To date, Ate Sarah said their foundation had already conducted medical missions in nine barangays of the city while they aim to hold more for all the city’s 30 barangays (villages).
“Every single day there are many people requesting for medicines aside from financial assistance, as well as for cane (tungkod), wheelchair, and quadcane,” she says, adding the St. Gerrard Construction Charity Foundation is now on its eighth year as as determined as ever to help the poor.
She also confirmed that at times there were some people who went to the Pasig City Hall to seek medical assistance, but they were, instead, told to approach St. Gerrard Construction Charity Foundation.
Ate Sarah made known at the media forum they also extend assistance to those who are not residents of Pasig. She and Curlee Discaya own and operate the St. Gerrard Construction Company, one of only 41 Quadruple “A” developer companies in the Philippines.
Meanwhile, Sia noted that the initial cost of the Senate Building was only Php8.2 billion.
“So, if you compare it, our City Hall, which is of a local government, would even be more expensive as against the Senate Building,” Sia points out. “So, for me, excessive.”
“Perhaps, as the head of the family, you should try to learn what is more important, your new house, or you need to bring your wife to a hospital, or your children’s education.”
It can be recalled that Sotto, son of movie stars Vic Sotto and Connie Reyes, unveiled his plans for the construction of the Pasig City Hall Campus on July 2 during the celebration of the city’s 450th Foundation Anniversary.
On his YouTube channel, the mayor said the plan’s conceptual design includes various aspects, being “future-proof” with open and green spaces for citizens, evacuation halls, senior citizens halls, hub for technology, earthquake-proof structures, including a fountain, food stalls, among other features.
“This may be the biggest project in the history of Pasig. So, I need your help and support,” the mayor said. He also acknowledged the Php9.6 billion price tag of the plan, sayimg it was not yet final.
In relation with the cost, businessman-philanthropist Curlee Discaya, a self-made success with his wife Ate Sarah Discaya, he asked the mayor to think over the City Hall complex’s cost, and instead divert part of the money to other initiatives that would redound to Pasiguenos’ healthcare, education, livelihood.
With the Php9.6 billion, Pasig City can operate three hospitals — Sia
“Do you believe that Pasiguenos need a City Hall Complex costing over Php9.6 billion, instead of additional hospital or health center equipped with modern equipment and medicines for patients which their daily wage cannot afford?” Curlee Discaya of the St. Gerrard Construction asks the mayor, in his letter to Sotto which the Office of the Mayor received on July 23 at 9:23 a.m.
Sotto said the Php9.6 billion amount is not the final price, for it could go down depending on bidders’ proposed cost for the Pasig City Hall Campus. He was also reported to have said the budget for the planned complex comes from savings of the city government.
Sia suggested that if the City Hall has not enough resources, why use them for a new City Hall. “Who will benefit if we have a new City Hall? Would the sick benefit? Would the students benefit? Would traders in Pasig benefit? I don’t see any benefit.”
The former city councilor suggested the only time “we should dream of a new City Hall is when all the problems in Pasig were already solved.”
“How many hospital Php9.6 billion can build? How many patients can be given attention? What I want to see in Pasig that we can brag about is not our new City Hall, but a modern hospital that even if you are poor, it is like entering St. Luke’s Hospital and The Medical City and that everything is free for the poor, and PhilHealth is there so we should use it,” he emphasizes.
He pointed out that if Pasig City’s neighbor Makati City can do it, Pasig also can, especially that city budget today is Php17 billion compared to Php6.3 billion when he was councilor in 2010, nearly triple.
“We can operate three hospitals with that budget (Php17 billion). That’s why our surplus budget should be used for health services, education, etc., because they are the ones with plenty of long-term benefits,” Sia says.
Let’s hope everything ends up in a win-win situation for the people of Pasig City. (/)