So buildings above four stories high are okay?
The murder of Ronda town vice mayor Atty. Jonah John Ungab by gunmen at the North Reclamation Area so near the Qimonda Hall of Justice has sent shivers down the spine of many lawyers whose job is to defend their clients regardless of whether or not they are guilty of the charges filed against them. From what I read about Atty. Ungab, he was a good man with a clean track record in government service.
Because he was the lawyer of bigtime drug lord Kerwin Espinosa, rumors are running high as to who could be the perpetrator of this crime, more so that he is not the first lawyer of Espinosa to be ambushed and killed. Meanwhile, Cebu City Police Office director Joel Doria has formed Task Force Ungab to look into the murder. Doria said that the task force will be headed by Investigation and Detection Management Branch chief Ryan Devaras, together with the CCPO Homicide Section and the Mabolo Police Station.
I can only wish them luck because a lawyer with so many clients having a criminal case would be difficult to trace unless someone squeals. The last prominent murder of a lawyer was way back in 2014 when Atty. Nestor Archival was killed allegedly by members of the Highway Patrol Group. At this point, we have no idea whether that case has been solved or not. The problem with people who have criminal cases is when the lawyer across the bench seems so good in defending his client they think that eliminating the lawyer would eliminate the problem. Unfortunately this is not the case when you kill the lawyer of your opponent.
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Did I read it correctly that Mayor Tomas Osmeña has given the go signal for the P18-billion Kawit Island Development or the proposal of the Universal Hotels and Resorts Inc. in the eight-hectare site in the South Road Properties to proceed with their planned development? This proposal by the UHRI plans is to construct a Waterpark, a casino, a yacht club, a convention center and hotel with world-class facilities.
Does this mean that he has relented and agreed to allow developers to construct buildings higher than four stories high? I'm asking this because when he returned from his trip to the US and was informed about the fire that destroyed the Metro Ayala in Ayala Center Cebu, his initial reaction was to no longer allow the construction of buildings more than four stories high.
As of this writing, Mayor Osmeña has never backtracked on his viewpoint, thus creating a backlog of building permits higher than four stories, which he put on hold. This is why when he made that proposal. I asked the mayor in a column whether he already told the Gokongweis to shelf their proposed Kawit development because from the colored drawings and architect's perspective, one can't help but notice the tall buildings that would be built within the eight-hectare area in Kawit, which is part of SRP.
With this development, I would like to believe that Mayor Osmeña has changed his mind in restricting the height of buildings to be constructed in Cebu City. Of course with his high pride, I don't expect Mayor Osmeña to publicly say that he has relented and changed his mind on restricting building height. How I wish he were humble enough to say that he was wrong in trying to put height restriction on buildings in Cebu City. But then even the mayor knows that humility is not one of his best traits!
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We gathered that Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu was in Cebu City for an environment summit where he pointed out that of the 2,600 establishments in Boracay, 834 were found to be discharging their wastewater into the sea. Of this number only 118 have permits while 716 have no permits. This only means that when those establishments were constructed, DENR people were either asleep or on the take. I also heard that the DENR is targeting Panglao Beach resort after they finish with Boracay. If we are to be a world-class beach resort, proper disposal of wastewater is a must and failure to do so should not be tolerated!
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