[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’What ‘missing bridge’? Work hasn’t started – guv aide ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BY RANIE AZUE
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
February 2, 2018
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
BACOLOD City – A Facebook post pertaining to a “missing bridge” in Sagay City, Negros Occidental prompted an explanation from the executive assistant of Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr.
Actual work on that bridge has not yet started, Eric Loretizo said. The governor’s aide also railed against the Facebook user behind the post, saying they were “destroying the person” of Marañon.
The post by user “Alan Richard Bisula Lacson” on a Facebook Group named “Samahan Mamamayan para sa Pagbabago 2017” accused Marañon of graft over what they called the “missing” Himoga-an River bridge project worth “P313 million.”
The Group claimed that the bridge project that Marañon ceremoniously launched in May 2014 with then President Benigno Aquino III was overpriced and “cannot be accounted.”
Loretizo explained that the 120-lineal meter Himoga-an Bridge along the Baviera-Bato Road in Sagay City was one of capitol’s infrastructure projects under the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP).
While the project has been bid out, actual construction “has not taken off,” Loretizo said, adding that the cost was pegged at P61.86 million, as per data from the Provincial Engineer’s Office.
A shorter bridge in Barangay Puey, Sagay City was also being pitched for PRDP funding. It is about 100 lineal meters and estimated to cost P80 million, said Loretizo.
“Actual work for both projects – with an aggregate total [cost] of P141.86 million – has not yet started,” he said.
Facebook user “Alan Richard Bisula Lacson” was asking where the bridge is and where Marañon took the budget for it, said Loretizo.
Such “below-the-belt, baseless attacks” were “meant to destroy the person of the governor,” he said.
Records of the bridge project are with the PRDP Project Management Unit and the Provincial Engineer’s Office “readily available for your perusal,” said Loretizo./PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
