DPWH offers to build an evacuation center in Cebu City

CEBU, Philippines — The Department of Public Works and Highways has reportedly offered to build an evacuation center for Cebu City, yet its promise of a modular hospital for the city has not yet been delivered.

Cebu City Councilor Jerry Guardo, the City Council’s chairman on the infrastructure committee, told The Freeman that DPWH has sent a letter to Mayor Michael Rama regarding the matter last week.

Guardo said DPWH also told him that he will be given a copy of the letter but has not yet received it as of this writing.

Guardo said what he knows so far is that the DPWH’s Cebu City District Engineering Office is asking the city to look for a lot where they can build such a facility and is accessible to electricity and water supply.

Based on the other evacuation centers built by DPWH, it is usually a two-storey multi-purpose building.

The building could also be used as an isolation center for COVID-19 patients or as an Emergency Operations Center as other LGUs are doing.

Guardo said he still had to get more details on this project and if it can also be incorporated with the modular hospital promised to Cebu City last year through DPWH’s regional office during the height of the Delta surge.

As per reports regarding the DPWH modular hospital, it is supposed to be a 200-bed capacity facility for COVID-19 as per request of Rama to then DPWH secretary Mark Villar.

The City Council led by Vice Mayor Donaldo Hontiveros has also approved the allocation of the 1-hectare land at the South Road Properties for the modular hospital already, according to Guardo.

With how COVID-19 is behaving, Guardo said, he will be making a follow-up on the modular hospital as well as whether it is better to have a standby facility for COVID-19 even if the current surge would already subside. — GMR (FREEMAN)