The Cebu Provincial Board has adopted two resolutions recommending a halt to the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project along Osmeña Boulevard in front of the Provincial Capitol Building in a regular session on March 4, 2024.
Sixth District Provincial Board (PB) Member Glenn Anthony Soco, chairman of the PB Committee on Trade and Industry, and Third District Board Member Atty. John Ismael Borgonia, chairman of the PB Committee on Provincial Properties, authored the resolutions passed en masse by its 18 legislators.
Soco and Borgonia cited economic losses with the worsening traffic condition in the alleged subtraction on road spaces.
“We are not adding more roads and road spaces. We are simply subtracting road spaces,” Soco said.
Soco pointed out, in a report on “Sugbo News,” Capitol’s news portal, that “instead of becoming the solution, the BRT project, which has been abandoned by other countries that had implemented it for its utter failure, will be the source of traffic woes since its dedicated bus lanes will force jeepneys, motorcycles, private vehicles to share the already constricted road.”
The other reason is alleged violation to laws on heritage protection.
Earlier, Dr. Jose Eleazar Bersales, Capitol consultant on heritage and museum, pointed out that the project along Capitol property is violative of heritage protection laws.
“What we see today is the rising of a structure that clearly will mar the vista of the Capitol…this is really an ultra-modern structure. When you look at that, mora gyud siya'g mga alien nanugpa. Mao ni problema karon: i-allow ba ang usa ka station nga sukwahi sa iyang disenyo ug dili morespeto sa historicity sa Kapitolyo,” Dr. Bersales said.
Capitol found out that there is no record of any design and plan submitted to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts regarding the bus stations on Osmeña Boulevard which it underscored to be a violation on the part of the proponent.
On February 27, 2024, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia issued a cease and desist order to implementers of the BRT project, particularly the bus stations along Osmeña Boulevard directly in front of the Capitol building.
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama expressed displeasure upon learning of the said order for alleged lack of coordination and basic courtesy, and for alleged meddling in city affairs.
The mayor also lashed at Cebu City Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia for purportedly playing along with her aunt, Governor Garcia, on the call to a halt of civil works directly in front of Capitol.
“Enough is enough. Ang Cebu City highly urbanized city. Ang head dinhi ang elected mayor. Unsa’y role sa governor?” an irate Rama said.
CAPITOL-OWNED LOTS ALONG OSMEÑA BOULEVARD
Provincial Legal Officer Donato Villa, Jr. said that Capitol has invoked its rights as a legal owner of lots along Osmena Boulevard on which the BRT project and its bus terminals are being built.
Further, in another report on “Sugbo News,” it was learned that the Cebu City District Engineering Office had declared that the Department of Public Works and Highways, which built the Osmeña Boulevard in post-war era, encroached on at least 30 Capitol-owned lots.
“The Provincial Government bought these lots, which include the Capitol Compound and the stretch of Osmeña Boulevard to Fuente Circle, from the Cebu Heights Company in the early 1930s,” the report indicated.
The National Historical Commission of the Philippines declared Cebu Capitol in 2008 as a National Historical Landmark, while the National Museum of the Philippines declared the Capitol building as an Important Cultural Property in 2020.
As of March 4, 2024, it was observed that pieces of the foglia (leaf)-design roofing was about to be installed at CBRT bus station along Natalio Bacalso Avenue (at the vicinity of the Cebu South Bus Terminal).
