ORMOC CITY, Philippines — Mayor Eric Codilla on Friday confirmed that the city government will proceed with its plans to build a city hospital, following the failure of the talks with the Leyte provincial government for the turnover of the management of the Ormoc District Hospital (ODH) to the city.
The talks bogged down over the transition period issue, Codilla said in a press conference as he blamed politics as the cause of the breakdown.
"Governor Jericho Petilla wanted a two or three-year transition period, while the city opted for six months," said the mayor. "In three years time, he will not be governor and I will not be mayor (as both of us are last termers), so who will oversee for the smooth transition?"
Codilla recalled that last January when Pres. Benigno Aquino had a stopover in this city en route to St. Bernard, Southern Leyte, the city had already a plan to build a 50-bed hospital with modern facilities, with the scheduled implementation of the project about to start then.
Petilla was present during that president's visit and he had a chance to talk with Codilla over coffee at the latter's office. Codilla said it was then that he opened up the city's plan to the governor who in turn reacted by saying that he would close the ODH if the city hospital will be operational, because it was not good to have two government hospitals in one place.
This prompted the mayor to propose instead for the turnover of the ODH management to the city government, and he said that the idea was acceptable to the governor.
The mayor's contention was that instead of using the money to build a new hospital, it would be better to spend this to purchase modern hospital equipment instead. The two then agreed, upon Petilla's suggestion, to have two high level teams from both sides to discuss the details of the turnover before implementing this.
"On February 10, a day before I delivered my state of the city address, the two teams met and discussed critical issues, especially on human resources," said Codilla.
The teams agreed to have the turnover starts either May or June with the exact date to be set later on. It also agreed that workers, who will not be reassigned by the Capitol for other assignments, will be retained and absorbed by the city management.
When asked by The FREEMAN what went wrong, Codilla said: "The initial talks were very positive initially, but when the turnover period neared, our political rivals work hard to derail the plan."
The seemingly surprised mayor said: "I don't know how they convinced Capitol, nevertheless the governor somewhat became cold to it. When I talked to him, he reasoned about the timeline, and a new issue even cropped up: Mayors in the district and ODH employees were allegedly apprehensive over it."
Due to this latest development, Codilla said, "The city will pursue the planned hospital project, and when this is completed, Petilla should not close the ODH because it can be deemed in bad faith ".
There are three areas the city is considering as its site for the hospital: A lot near the 1.6-hectare City Hall, in Bgys. San Pablo and Ipil. "We are now ready to implement the project with a P40 million initial budget," said the mayor.
The governor has yet to issue a statement on his side of the issue.