• CHERYL G. CRUZ
The Negros Occidental Bulk Water Supply Project and the Bacolod Super City Project are among the more than 45 infra projects exempted from poll ban in line with the May 2025 elections.
The super city project, worth about P2.10 billion as per the Public-Private Partnership Center website, involves a centralized command center for monitoring traffic, natural disasters, and criminal activities, coordinating emergency responses and disseminating public alerts; and the installation of intelligent streetlamp poles equipped with video surveillance and analytics.
It also aims to develop a property tax assessment system for efficient transaction in tax collection and planning; and a comprehensive Geographic Information System to facilitate the creation of maps, spatial analysis, and data integration aimed at improving the operational efficiency and data sharing of the city’s departments and offices.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod already ratified the resolution of the City Development Council in support of the project.
Mayor Alfredo Benitez had said it is eyed as one of the most modern command centers in the country, and is part of the vision of Bacolod to become a super city. “The foundation that we are creating is really aligned towards the concept of a smart, super city.”
The P1.2 billion bulk water project of Capitol, meanwhile, is expected to supply treated bulk water to six water service providers in the cities of Bacolod, Silay, Talisay, and Victorias, and the municipalities of Manapla and E.B. Magalona.
Last week, Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said a consortium of First Balfour, which forms part of the Lopez Group of Companies, and Victorias Milling Company as local partner, won the bidding, with construction expected to be completed within three years.
Aside from these two projects, most of those mega structures exempted from election ban involved railways, hospitals, bridges, and airports, as per the Philippine News Agency report, adding the construction of these projects will continue, as per a certificate of exemption signed by Commission on Elections chairperson George Garcia recently. | CGC
