EDITORIAL - Whole truth not being told about CICC

The common perception about the Cebu International Convention Center is that its construction was riddled with corruption. That, however, has not been proven. But because corruption has become synonymous with politics, and politics has become synonymous with everyday life, it has become more believable than not to promptly blame corruption for anything that goes wrong in life.

And so, with the political season heating up, and the CICC looming large as a monument to alleged corruption, trigger-happy supporters of the reelectionist governor jumped the gun on everybody else in using the CICC as ammunition for early campaigning. A large banner in Liberal Party yellow went up at CICC to  proclaim "Never Again."

When weeks went by and the slogan did not seem to pick up, owing to either a failure to communicate or plain public apathy, the bright boys added the amount of P840 million used to construct the center, plus words to the effect that people's money had been wasted. Taken in light of the governor's own pronouncement that he will not spend a centavo to repair the facility, all that the sloganeering succeeded in doing is boomerang on its intended beneficiary.

Was the amount of P840 million too much for the facility? Maybe yes and maybe no. At the time it was built for the Asean Summit, the amount did not seem to matter more than the need to have a proper venue built in the short time given the organizers to prepare. Did the construction measure up to the amount spent? Maybe yes and maybe no. Again for the same reasons that time was breathing on everyone's neck, all that mattered then was to host the event as successfully as possible.

Everything that seemed to be so wrong with the CICC surfaced only later when its primary purpose at the time had been served. But let us presume that even half of all the bad things said about the CICC is true, the more people's money will be wasted if the intelligent decision is simply to let the facility rot away. Then the money wasted will truly become irrecoverable.

By the way, when we talk of people's money, it is truly people's money. It is not the governor's or any of the politicians now jockeying to use the CICC as a platform for their own spineless campaigns. Politicians could not care less if it is people's money that is being wasted. They steal and misuse people's money too, remember?

Another thing. Those who are now harping about the CICC are not being exactly truthful about certain facts. For example, the CICC may not have been the most solid of constructions, but it was not this infirmity that led to its eventual disuse. It was a powerful earthquake that did it in, the same earthquake that crippled other edifices, including those that were built free of any allegations of corruption, such as the Palace of Justice and numerous churches here and elsewhere.