Osmeña vows CCMC development if elected

CEBU, Philippines —  Former Cebu City councilor and mayoralty candidate Margarita Osmeña has vowed to continue to develop the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) if she wins in the May 9 general elections.

Osmeña said experts like former councilor Mary Ann delos Santos will be assigned to oversee the hospital. Delos Santos used to oversee the operations of CCMC in 2016.

Osmeña said she would gladly give the task back to delos Santos if they both win on Monday. She said her fellow Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) candidate is fit for public hospital management.

She admitted that the construction of the new CCMC building had been dragging on for so long now. The mayoralty candidate said that the new city hospital building deserves to be completed by now.

The Cebu City government on April issued a notice to proceed for the construction of Phase 4 of the project. The contract was won by M.E. Sicat Construction.

At least P916.8 million has been allocated for the construction of phase 4 that would complete the 10-storey hospital structure. Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama has challenged the contractor to finish the building before his birthday on October 28.

The mayor said he is very serious on the completion of the project because he wants a globally competitive hospital for the poor. Currently, the new CCMC has seven floors of which the first three floors are already operational.

When former mayor Edgardo Labella assumed the mayorship in 2019, the city spent P566 million for Phase 1 of construction, P300 million for Phase 2, and P100 million for Phase 3.

Rama, who was mayor in 2014, ordered the demolition of the old CCMC building after it suffered extensive damage during the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Central Visayas in 2013. Construction of the new CCMC building began in 2015. — FPL (FREEMAN)