VP Binay’s camp clarifies they have no intention to offend Belmonte

House Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte (left) and Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay. (Photos courtesy of Wikipedia and Yes Marinduque)

MANILA — The camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay clarified on Saturday that they have no intention to offend Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., and they just want to convey the cost per square meter comparison of different public buildings undertaken by the same contractor.

“We concede to the point of Speaker Belmonte that the Batasan Pambansa building is a very different public building,” Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla, the spokesperson of VP Binay said in a statement.

He said a major cost factor for Makati Building 2 is the strengthening of the structure built beside a river, which people in offices must share with moving vehicles in an elevated parking garage.

Remulla explained that VP Binay has no intention at all to argue with the House leadership on the construction of Batasang Pambansa building saying that it is just a co-incident that it has the same contractor with different condition of soil.

He pointed out that the soil in the controversial parking building 2 of the Makati City Hall is soft and needed to construct engineering beam materials to ensure that the building is strong and could just sway even against strong earthquake.

However, Batasan Pambansa building was erected on thick reddish soil with combined hard rocks beneath the earth.