UPGRADING. Antique Provincial Engineer Inocencio Dajao, Jr. (seventh from left) appears before the regular session of the provincial board session that tackles the cease and desist order on the hospital upgrading project on Oct. 9, 2023. Dajao, in an interview Tuesday (Feb. 13, 2024), said they are waiting for the response of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines on the proposed hospital development plan they sent last December. (PNA file photo by Annabel Consuelo J. Petinglay)
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – The provincial engineer of Antique is urging the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) to lift the cease and desist order (CDO) issued on the rehabilitation of the President Diosdado Macapagal District Hospital in Tobias Fornier town for the project to proceed.
Engr. Inocencio Dajao Jr. said, with the assistance of the provincial legal office, they sent the proposed development plan of the hospital to the NHCP on Dec. 5, 2023, but they have not received a response.
The PHP15 million project seeks to upgrade the hospital to a 25-bed capacity from its existing 15-bed capacity.
“I am just hoping that how quickly we had responded to the NHCP letter, that would also be how fast they would respond to us,” Dajao said in an interview on Tuesday.
Dajao said they immediately halted repair work that was about 60 percent to 80 percent completed following the issuance of the CDO signed by NHCP chairman Dr. Emmanuel Franco Calairo on Sept. 6, 2023.
The CDO cited that the 56-year-old hospital, an important cultural property, is protected from any modification or renovation based on Republic Act (RA) 10066, as amended by RA 11961 or the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009; hence, the project needs clearance from the commission.
“Before the CDO was issued, we had already started construction of the sewage treatment plant, firewall, and repair of the wards as well as the existing hospital building,” Dajao said.
The hospital renovation started in 2019 and temporarily stopped during the pandemic. It again resumed on July 2023 until the NHCP issued the halt order.
“The hospital continues its operation until now, but then the upgrading of the hospital had been derailed,” Dajao said. (PNA)
