The flyover project was envisioned to ease the worsening traffic congestions at the BGH rotunda but oppositors to the project claimed that it will affect the water aquifer in the area as well as result to the cutting of numerous century-old pine trees.

In his weekly press briefing last Friday, Yaranon said he had never heard the President issue an order to immediately implement the long delayed project that was supposed to have been started three years ago.

"I have not heard the President talk about the project. It’s up to the Commission on Audit (CoA) to decide on the legality of the contract," Yaranon said, adding that his opposition to the project stays until his queries have been properly answered by the audit commission.

The pronouncement of Yaranon contradicted those of Director Mariano Alquiza of the DPWHCordillera Autonomous Region that the President had personally informed him that the flyover project must push through since all the legal questions surrounding it have already been settled.

Yaranon filed an inquiry with the CoA on whether it was legal to push through with the flyover project without the certificate of availability of funds.

Earlier, Baguio City Rep. Mauricio G. Domogan asked the DPWH to immediately implement the project since the long delay has already greatly affected the project’s cost as prices of construction materials escalate.

Domogan said that the first phase of the project, which was estimated to cost R44 million before, now costs about R56 million or R12 million more than its previous estimates and that continued delays would render the funds insufficient.

For his part, Alquiza expressed fears that the opposition of the mayor would further delay the project and that his refusal to issue the clearance, which is a requisite for the issuance of a tree-cutting permit by the Department of Environment and Natural resources _DENR), is a vital setback to the project’s implementation.

Domogan said that the city has no authority to issue a tree-cutting permit because that power is vested in the DENR.

Records show that the R44 million allotted for the first phase of the project came from the savings from the R1.2-billion Marcos Highway rehabilitation project while the remaining balance of the R88 million were appropriated from the 2003 and 2004 General Appropriations Act.

Yaranon voted in favor of the implementation of the flyover project when he was still a member of the city council in 2002.

The flyover project was envisioned to ease the worsening traffic congestions at the BGH rotunda but oppositors to the project claimed that it will affect the water aquifer in the area as well as result to the cutting of numerous century-old pine trees.