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TWO opposition leaders outlined their plans of how to run the South Road Properties (SRP) if they get elected to Congress.
Businessman Jonathan Guardo and Lahug barangay captain Mary Ann delos Santos said they would come up with an SRP Comprehensive Sustainable Development Plan to be developed by a proposed SRP Development Authority.
The authority will manage the SRP and be its marketing arm.
Guardo said that SRP can be a great source of income and jobs for Cebu.
?SRP can be our ?cash cow' if we manage and promote it better with the help of experts,? he said.
The SRP plan was included in the OUR (Opportunity Unity and Reform) Cebu program, which the opposition leaders launched last week.
Cebu City administrator Bimbo Fernandez said he was happy that Delos Santos now wants to create a development authority for SRP because it shows that Delos Santos is now convinced that SRP is good for the city.
Fernandez said this was a turnaround from her stand during the 2007 elections where she urged the Cebu City government to return the P6-billion loan funded SRP to the national government.
Both opposition leaders have been promoting the OUR Cebu program to encourage businessmen, private individuals who are experts of their own fields, government officials and technocrats to join them.
?We want to promote a pro-development and pro-business development plan for Cebu where we will tap everyone's expertise in whatever project we intend to develop instead of being a one-man show,? Delos Santos said referring to the reclamation project of the Cebu City government, the SRP.
Guardo and Delos Santos said they wanted more transparency and a unified business development climate in Cebu especially for the business process outsourcing and tourism sectors.
?We believe that if we have that organization (SRP Development Authority) we can achieve transparency as all transactions will be based on a development plan and will be open to the public. That way we can avoid law suits like what is happening now,? Guardo said referring to the complaints filed by the Capitol on the SRP joint venture deal.
Delos Santos said the SRP is presently managed by one person and and has no master plan.
?Nobody knows the master plan because there is only one person doing all the transactions who is the master himself,? she said referring to Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
But Mayor Osmeña said that transparency was never an issue with him.
?Did I avoid any question of the media regarding SRP? I keep explaining as if I'm reciting a novena,? Osmeña said about the transparency issue that Guardo and Delos Santos' raised.
?I explain to the barangays four times a night. And Atan (Guardo) cannot and will not show his liquidation report on what happened to P10 million in government funds during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) games four years ago,? Osmeña said.
?Let them draft a proposed law creating an SRP authority so I can comment on it,? Osmeña said.
