EDITORIAL – Reexamining the sports complex project

When the Davao City government announced that the Dabawenyos’ dreams of having a sports complex is finally taking shape, everyone jumped for joy.
It was like rain coming on hot midsummer’s day. A whiff of fresh air in the morning.
The long wait was coming to an end.
The sports complex, long overdue for Davao’s sports community, is about the last thing Davao does not have for a vibrant and rapidly growing metropolis. It is the ultimate dream of many Dabawenyos after seeing the last sporting frontier–the then Palaruang Panlungsod or the PTA Sports Complex–vanish into what is now the People’s Park some years ago.
For a long time, there was no significant sporting oasis to keep children playing and running or adults and senior citizens alike working out. And while the city’s residents make do with the roads as jogging lanes, or mall parking lots as running tracks and biking loops, our neighbors in Davao del Norte and Davao del Sur started completing their modern sports complexes.
Most of us can only breath deeply in envy.
So it’s understandable that when the Memorandum of Understanding with University of the Philippines-Mindanao campus came to fore, Dabawenyos simply rejoiced at the thought of the project finally taking shape.
Until lately when the MOU was clouded with claims from those who presented themselves as landowners of the property that’s supposed to be the site of the sports complex project inside the UP Mindanao campus. Now it has become the subject of heated debate between the executive and the legislative branches of this local government.
Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte has come to call a halt to the project until the claims are settled. He wants the MOU revisited. On the other hand, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte says he is sticking with the UP site and believes the claims of the settlers at UP will not hold water.
With this recent development, the sports complex project is in limbo.
We see no reason to rush things here. In fact, the announcement of the site at UP Mindanao campus may not be new as it had been discussed many years back. However, building a sports complex is not like building ordinary structures. Much more make it just a point to cover up for a long overdue shortcoming. The first and strongest argument here is the viability of the sports complex in terms of accessibility. The UP site appears to be not the best site in this respect.
Second, the question on the cost of the project at P8 billion looks very expensive at first thought especially when there are no specifics on the structures that will be built in that complex. By comparison, the Davao del Norte Sports Complex costs P240 million when completed in 2012. Add some renovations and additional structures, the entire complex could be around P300 plus million. The Davao del Sur sports complex is around P500 million although it is not yet fully completed. The Philippine Arena, the biggest sports facility in the country today, in Bulacan costs P9.4 billion.
If this is P8 billion according to UP Mindanao, this could be more than a sports complex they are planning to build.
Given the many aspects of the project that need to be fully discussed, it is only imperative that the proposed project be revisited without further delays and a report, transparent as it must, be provided for everyone to be fairly apprised.