TENNIS COURT INAUGURATED BUT UNFINISHED – A TREND AT THE BAGUIO ATHLETIC BOWL

May 11, 2025 Community Billboard

UNFINISHED BUSINESS. The Baguio sports complex remains unattended as the trend continues of unfinished and substandard projects
at the athletic bowl.

PML

BAGUIO CITY

Even as the city government officially inaugurated the newly built tennis court last Monday, the facility will remain with the contractor until it is fully finished. Work continues at the PHP130 million facility the days following the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Baguio Athletic Bowl with mayor Benjamin Magalong even trying his hand at playing at the hard court surface. A return there saw the mayor use a back hand that some netizen say the mayor knows his game. But while inauguration took place construction, workers resumed working after the city officials and guests left.

The facility was supposed to open last April after another delay, which came after another delay as the contractor continued to delay completion of the project aimed to improve the former shell and sand surface used to be run by a local tennis group. The manicured frontage where some trees were felled, however, is open that could allow people to enter anytime. It appeared that the new gate worth PhP30 million that was supposed to limit entry after sunset has been rendered useless.

Fronting the structure across the oval sits a mammoth unfinished building that had been mothballed more than a year ago remains unattended even if a new contractor had apparently won the bidding. The PhP381 million Baguio sports complex will remain incomplete this year when completion should have been attained as earlier programmed. “ I hope it will not be like the grandstand extension,”
Magalong told the contractor during the groundbreaking rites in February 2022.

The extension saw the put up of four floodlight towers around the oval which has never been put into use. Then there is the oval which has been wanting improvement because of its faulty drainage, a two feet short of its supposed 400 meter length. The city’s PhP140 million
project may go into limbo after the city council flagged the City Building and Architect’s Office for branding it a new project instead of improvement. There is also the athletes dormitory at the back of the swimming pool which remains incomplete after nearly five years of construction.

The pool had been opened after years of rehab works. All in all the athletic bowl upgrade program has been wanting as delays in
construction that lead to failure and eventual cancellation of the contract. This has led to delayed plans to host national events. Even the regional meet, the Cordillera Administrative Region Athletic Association, cannot be used at the venue. Unless it is very much needed like in 2022 when Baguio was forced to host that the Department of Education was told that it was a “play at your own risk” situation.

The modernization of the athletic bowl was started in 2015 and after nine years the series of works done there has not been completed.
With a sports code already in place, one of the code’s aims for athletes to have a world class facility that can be used for their training remains a promise. Unless the city government does something to make winning contractors responsible and accountable.. And they are not from here, some of them even undergo the usual bidding process, win but later sell it to another contractor, reportedly.

Local qualified contractors are out there somewhere, some in Apayao or in the Ilocos where they fulfill their contracts, turn the facility on time and up to the scope of work as stipulated in the scope of work. “We can’t win here so we go somewhere else,” said a contractor.