CEBU CITY -- Mayor Michael Rama has ordered the City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) to remove all decorative lampposts installed in the city during the 12th Asean Summit.
The mayor said he wants the lampposts removed because they have deteriorated and can no longer be used, considering that their electric cables and bulbs have been stolen.
City Traffic Operations (Citom) executive director lawyer Rafael Yap said they were instructed by Rama to remove the Asean lampposts last February yet.
Last Friday, Yap said he went to Manila and visited the Office of the Special Prosecutor to inform them of the City’s plan to remove the lampposts.
“We want to get the go signal of the court before we remove the lampposts. We really want to be very careful in removing these because it is subject to pending litigation and they may be used as evidence by the court,” he said.
As a result of the meeting, Yap said he was instructed by the Office of the Special Prosecutor to coordinate with the Commission on Audit (COA) Central Visayas and the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
Yap will request COA and the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas to conduct a joint inspection with Citom of the remaining lampposts.
After this, he said, an inspection report will then be submitted to the court. It will contain, among others, the status of the lampposts, their locations, and a list of what items are missing.
“It will then be up to the court if they will conduct another ocular inspection, accept our report or deny our request to remove the lampposts,” he said.
The lampposts are subject to a pending litigation, after it was reported that the items, purchased by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the January 2007 international gathering, were allegedly overpriced.
The lampposts were installed along selected streets to beautify Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue for the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit, which was scheduled in December 2006 but had to be postponed because of a storm.
Asked how many lampposts were installed and how many remain, Yap said that while they conducted a preliminary inventory in June, they don’t have the specific figures yet.
Sun.Star Cebu’s news archive shows that 360 decorative lamps had been installed in the city during the Asean Summit.
In Cebu City, these were installed along the streets of S. Osmeña, Juan Luna, Salinas Drive, Veterans’ Drive and the road going up to Marco Polo Hotel in Nivel Hills, said Yap.
In an interview on Monday, Yap said he believes the Asean lampposts should be removed as they are “fundamentally useless.”
“Worthless na gyud siya. Wala na iyang features like the wires, cables and the bulbs kay gikawat man,” he said.
Aside from being defective, Yap said the lampposts are an obstruction on the sidewalks.
Along S. Osmeña St, Yap said, the lampposts need to go because there is an ongoing beautification in the area.
Yap said the City will shoulder the expenses in the removal of the lampposts.
Once these are removed, Yap said DPWH will have to take custody of the lampposts since the City Government was not involved in the deal.
The City, through former mayor now Representative Tomas Osmeña (Cebu City, south district), did not sign the lampposts deal, saying its purchase was overpriced.
Asked what the City will do if the court will not grant their request to remove the lampposts, Yap said they will ask for permission to “beautify” these instead.
“On how it will be done, that still has to be discussed,” he said.
