The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is planning to build environment-friendly buildings that will house its main office.

Comelec Administrative Services Department director Julius Thaddeus Hernan said the structures will be erected on 20,160 square meters of land located at the Central Business Park 1 Island A in Pasay City, right across the Baclaran Church.

The lot was purchased during the time of former chairperson Sixto Brillantes Jr.

“The plan is to build three big structures, the centermost part will be the main building which will house the chairman, commissioners offices, session hall, among others. The left building will be the multi-story parking and storage spaces. The buildings have nine stories,” he said at the press briefing during the ocular inspection of the property led by Comelec chairperson George Erwin Garcia on Monday.

“The other building will house the Comelec Academy, there will be dormitories for field officers. There will also be an auditorium, gym, and daycare center. The design of every floor is very holistic,” the poll body official added.

Hernan noted that these structures are “green buildings” since these will be resilient and were also designed in consideration of the country’s Green Building Code.

“It has a water recycling facility wherein the rainwater can be converted and use to water the plants and also for flushing the toilet. We will be using materials that are environment-friendly. In fact, we will have solar panels so they can generate some savings on our electric consumption. Our windows, it’s slanted so it will deflect direct heat, sunlight so that the temperature inside the building will be lowered and the requirement on air conditioning will be much lower,” he added.

Meanwhile, Garcia is hoping that the PHP500 million initially given will be increased for them to start the construction of their new main office in Pasay City.

He said they will defend their budget during the hearing set on Sept. 9.

“We hope to defend our budget this Friday and to convince them to increase our funding (for the construction of the building), if possible PHP2 billion, so we can encourage contractors to participate in our green building project,” the Comelec chief said.

Initially, the poll body said they will be needing some PHP8.2 billion for the construction of the new Comelec building but this has already increased to PHP9.3 billion due to rising inflation. (PNA)