Belmonte: House Annex not a parking building

Published September 18, 2014 7:18pm

It’s like comparing apples and oranges.

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Thursday said there’s no basis for comparing the price tag of the Makati City Hall Building II with the cost of some buildings in the House of Representatives because the structures in the Batasan complex were not garages.

Earlier in the day, Vice President Jejomar Binay said in a televised speech that the cost per square meter of the allegedly overpriced Makati City Building II is either significantly lower or at par with those of other government buildings, including House of Representatives Annex Building and the newly constructed North Lounge Extension.

Binay claimed the price per square meter of the questioned Makati building at P69,540 was cheaper than the P74,751 per square meter cost of the House of Representatives Annex Building.

The complainants, who filed the plunder charges against Binay and his son Makati Mayor Junjun Binay, called Makati City Hall Building II a parking building. The Binays said it was a facility with offices, not just parking spaces.

“The [cost of the] buildings in the House of Representatives isn’t comparable [with the Makati City Building II] because our buildings aren’t garages. They’re buildings with bathrooms in every office for each congressman, they have all sorts of facilities and they have conference rooms. The materials used in their construction were of good quality,” Belmonte told reporters.

Narra panelling

While Belmonte cannot recall the contract price or the price per square meter of the two House buildings, he said the buildings were obviously well-built structures.

“They’re office buildings with bathrooms, they were built with first class materials. Some of the rooms even had panelling made from narra,” he said.

Belmonte said Hilmarc’s Construction Corporation (HCC), the contractor of the Makati City Hall Building II, “[was] not a bad contractor” despite allegations that some of the government buildings it constructed were allegedly overpriced.

HCC built the Ramon V. Mitra Building inside the House of Representatives compound.

“[Hilmarc’s] has done a lot of buildings in Makati, especially in the section of Makati where the old Meralco building and Rockwell is located. I myself, from a workmanship point of view, [think] their construction of offices is okay. But if you asked [HCC] to construct a garage, that’s a different story,” he said.

Kabataan party-list Terry Ridon has filed a resolution asking the House to probe HCC for clinching several big-ticket government infrastructure projects, some of which are embroiled in controversies involving corruption and bloated construction costs.

Among the buildings Ridon wants investigated is the Iloilo Convention Center, a pet project of Senate President Franklin Drilon. —NB, GMA News

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