Featured image shows screenshot of Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto from a video clip of reporter Nolan Ariola.
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(SDN) — Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto has taken exceptions to information contained in some articles concerning his proposed plan for a new City Hall complex tentatively worth Php9.6 billion.
The proposed Pasig City Hall Campus, as he announced during the 450th Anniversary Celebration of the city last month on July 2, has a conceptual design that includes, among others, being “future-proof” with open and green spaces for citizens, evacuation halls, senior citizen halls, hub for technology, earthquake-proof structures, a fountain, and food stalls.
“This may be the biggest project in the history of Pasig City. So, I need your help and support,” the mayor said at the celebration, showing a video of the design.
“Why are you asking the LGU (local government unit) for its side only now, after your article has already been published? he asked in his letter.
“To my understanding, it is an accepted standard of journalistic practice and ethics to seek the side of the party to whom negative allegations are imputed before publishing a story,” the mayor tells some journalists he wrote a letter to.
He explained that some of the information in the article about the computation of costing per square meter in their article “are both inaccurate and misleading.”
“This is not surprising, considering that your source was a party with conflict of interest. It seems that the allegations in their press release were not fact-checked,” Sotto emphasizes.
“As a project under the ‘design & build modality’ of procurement, the detailed cost estimates for the new Pasig City Hall (are) currently being finalized before contract signing. This project will be implemented with utmost transparency. The detailed cost estimates will be published and made available to the general public upon finalization and contract signing,” he assures.
It can be recalled that businessman-philanthropist Curlee Discaya sent a letter to Sotto which his office received at 9:23 a.m. on July 23, 2024.
In the letter, Discaya, owner of the St. Gerrard Construction Corporation, a Quadruple “A” developer, asked the mayor to scale down the price tag of the project to around Php3.2 billion and used the savings of Php6.4 billion for a new hospital and other projects to cater to Pasig residents.
In his letter, the businessman-philanthropist offered to draft a detailed plan of the new city hall for free.
As quoted in other news reports, the mayor, while acknowledging the project’s price tag, he emphasized that it was not the final price but just a budget the city government approved.
He pointed out that the project’s actual cost could be lowered, depending on the amount that bidders will submit. The mayor added the project was “well-thought out, well-planned” while at the same time assuring utmost transparency in the implementation.
In relation with this, a brief video clip shows Sotto being asked by a reporter if he saw the “proposal”, or at least offer, of Discaya to draft a detailed plan for the project at no cost to the local government.
“Wala naman silang proposal,” Pasig City’s chief executive tells the reporter after one of the local government’s flag-raising ceremonies. (Translation: They have no proposal.)
The letter to the mayor of the owner of the St. Gerrard Construction Corp. contained the offer for a detailed plan, gratis. — EDD K. USMAN)/SDN (♡)