The Capitol leaves Bacolod

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

 

Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said the mayors of Negros Occidental support the transfer of the Provincial Capitol building to Talisay City. He was quoted saying “There was no negative reaction and all the mayors favor the transfer.”

 

The governor also said that while the Capitol Building will be transferred, Bacolod City will remain the capital of the province.

 

This clarifies the earlier report that the provincial capital will also be transferred to Talisay which I think is a tenable idea considering that Bacolod is an autonomous political unit. It is separate and distinct from the province. The people of Bacolod do not vote for provincial officials and the governor has no authority in the city.

 

It seems that this idea of transferring the Capitol Building is not new. The governor said that the Capitol building to be built in Talisay City “will have the same cost amounting to more than P900M, which was already bidden and awarded to Dynamic Builders as the contractor during the previous administration of the late Governor Alfredo Marañon. It will also have the same building design as the present Capitol.”

 

The present Capitol Building will be retained but what will it house? At the façade of this building is etched the name “Capitol of the Province of Negros Occidental”. What will be the name of the one to be constructed in Talisay? We can’t have two separate buildings, one in Bacolod and another in Talisay with the same name.

 

The Provincial Government has originally planned to construct a high rise building in front of the office of NBI-Bacolod after the demolition of the Provincial Administration Center. The work is going on in there and from the looks of it the construction will take some time. Will this remain as the Center for the administrative arm of the province? There is no word about this yet, but considering the size of the building it can accommodate a large number of offices.

It is good that the Capitol Building will remain. The plan to construct this historic Romanesque structure was made in 1926 with an appropriation of P255,000. It was intended to be the grandest in the province although its main concept and design are similar to the other Capitol buildings in the country.

 

However, problems arose as several families who owned part of the 14-hectares of land where the building was to be constructed refused to sell at the government price, prompting the province to file for expropriation. The province offered only P1,200 per hectare considering that part of it was swamp land, called labugon.

 

Work began in 1927 on land not under litigation after the Director of Bureau of Public Works authorized its construction. The bid to construct went to Manuel Concepcion.

 

However, the contractor failed to meet the deadline and the province sued and confiscated the bond. The building was completed in October 1933 under the supervision of the BPW. The province finally accepted the Capitol on January 11, 1935. The work spanned the term of three governors – Jose Locsin, Isaac Lacson and Emilio Gaston. Only in 1936 did the court decide in favour of the province in the expropriation cases of the other areas of the Capitol site.

 

The provincial capitol building is considered the most beautiful of the capitols in the country. Standing on an elevated ground and with a large park in front, it looks large and magnificent against a clear sky and the lagoon.

 

However, after the construction of the tall commercial building behind in 2019, its profile was debased if observed from Lacson Street. The commercial building looks a bit taller than the Capitol that looked flat at the top. During the discussion of the plans of the commercial building it was understood that the Capitol silhouette against the western sky is not disfigured. But nobody bothered.

 

I have some thoughts on how to preserve the historicity of the Capitol after it is vacated, but the provincial government will surely have its own idea for two capitols and a large administration building.

 

The transfer of some offices to Talisay will help ease the Bacolod traffic congestion but also increase the time and cost of transacting at the Capitol.