Contractor’s testimony shows car park’s price comparable to other gov’t buildings

Ground Floor of the Makati City Hall Building II. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines—A Makati City official said on Saturday that the testimony of the contractor of the Makati City Hall Building 2 bolstered the local government’s position that the price of the structure “is comparable to other government projects.”

In a statement, Eleno Mendoza Jr., city administrator, said that based on the data presented by Rogelio Peig, Hilmarc’s Construction Corp.’s assistant vice president for legal affairs, Makati City Hall Building 2 cost P69,549.92 per square meter.

He said Peig compared this with the House of Representatives’ annex building, or the Mitra Building, built in 1998 that reportedly had a contract price of P462 million, or P38,000 per sq m on the average.

According to Mendoza, Peig said that if the Mitra Building were constructed at the same time as the Makati City Hall Building 2, its cost would have averaged around P74,000 per sq m.

“The figures presented by the representative from Hilmarc’s clearly show that the cost of Makati City Hall Building 2 is comparable if not lower than other public buildings that the construction company built,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza also cited Peig’s testimony in the Senate that the Calamba City Hall cost P31,000 per sq m in 2002.

The Calamba City Hall, Mendoza quoted Peig as saying, would have cost around P65,000 per sq m if the current index price of the National Statistics Office were used.

Mendoza pointed out Peig’s observation that the Calamba City Hall was not built with the pile foundation that the Makati City Hall Building 2 has.

If the Calamba City Hall were built on a pile foundation, Peig said, it would have cost P73,000 per sq m.

According to Mendoza, Peig also said it was “wrong” to compare the costs of public buildings built under the procurement law and privately owned buildings.

2 additional layers

Peig explained that under the procurement law, the procuring entity should deal with only the general contractor and not directly with the manufacturer.

Peig said the additional two layers resulting from that “requirement” of the procurement law meant that “there will be additional two layers of taxes and markups to shoulder on the part of the procuring entity.”

“Especially in real estate development, the developers supply the materials and it is also they who go directly to specialty contractors,” Mendoza said, quoting Peig.

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