Mayor: Hang plants on lampposts

After being purchased at over P80,000  each to light up Metro Cebu  streets for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in 2007, the decorative lampposts, many of them idle and vandalized, may  be used for hanging plants.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said  he wanted the lampposts removed to clear the sidewalks, but if the court won’t allow this, he may have them painted black and used to  hang plants.

There are over 130 decorative lampposts in Cebu City alone. Others were put up in Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu cities.

The Asean lammposts, installed by  contractors of the  Dept. of Public Works and Highways, are the subject of a graft case pending in the Sandiganbayan.

An inventory by the  Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) showed that  none of the lampposts are functioning.  Bulbs, electrical wiring and other parts have been lost to vandals.

If lampposts along S. Osmeña Road  leading to Plaza Independencia are removed, Rama said he wanted to replace them with another set of lampposts of  European design.

He said he wanted the road  to look like the scenic roads in tourist-friendly Barcelona, Spain.

Asean summit lampposts are located along S. Osmeña road, Juan Luna Avenue, Salinas Drive and Veterans Drive to the vicinity of the Marco Polo Hotel.

Rafael Yap, Citom chief, said the mayor ordered him last February to find out how to have the “worthless” lampposts removed. A preliminary inventory was made in June.

“Since the lampposts are on the sidewalk, it’s a traffic matter (that Citom should take care of),” he said.

Last Friday, he also visited the office of the Special Prosecutor at the Palace of Justice to ask about  the procedure to be followed in removing the lampposts.

Yap said he was advised to coordinate with the Ombudsman-Visayas and and the Commission on Audit (COA) in conducting a joint inspection of lampposts installed in Cebu City.

The results would be submitted to the Sandiganbayan, which handles the  lamppost cases.

“It’s up to the Sandiganbayan if they will approve our request,” he said.

Based on his preliminary inventory, Yap said he found that all of the lampposts are already non-functional.

Since former mayor Tomas Osmeña did not sign any document on the donation of the lampposts to Cebu City, the DPWH still has custody and has to keep them if they are removed from the sidewalks or can give them to the contractors.

Yap said the city government would have to spend for the removal of the lampposts.

“But if we are not allowed to remove these, we will just have to ask the court’s permission to beautify these. We can put hanging plants there,” he said./Doris C. Bongcac, Chief Of Reporters with Correspondent Edison A. Delos Angeles