Feb. 28 — The Supply and Property Management Office (SPMO) recently blessed their new home behind Albert Hall (currently the National Institute for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology).
The rite was conducted by Fr. Michael James Py of the Parish of the Holy Sacrifice and was preceded by a ribbon-cutting ceremony officiated by the afternoon’s guests of honor, namely Chancellor Sergio Cao, Vice Chancellor for Administration Mary Delia Tomacruz and SPMO Director Virginia C. Yap.
The new building, which used to be a mechanical shop known as the Fisheries Building, was being used by the NIMBB as a storage facility. With its impending move to its new home at the National Science Complex, the NIMBB gave the facility to the SPMO as a concession.
Some P4 million was spent to renovate the roughly 420-square-meter building. It began in late 2009, ending in February 2010, the same month that the SPMO moved in.
Everything but the walls and floor area was torn down and replaced. The interiors were repartitioned and new doors, roof and lavatories, among others, were installed.
Before moving into their new home, the SPMO occupied several spaces in the University: a basement in Quezon Hall, then the old CMO building which was gutted by fire in 1996 (now the site of the College of Architecture).
They were then moved to the old K-2 building along Katipunan Avenue from 1996 to 2000 before being again relocated to a small space inside the National Book Development Board building, which they occupied until 2009 when the College of Science finally got the funding for the construction of the NIMBB and IB buildings.
The SPMO, through the Colleges of Science and Engineering, was also able to get some P1.136 million worth of equipment for the updating and upgrading of their operations. This includes desktop computers, servers, a CCTV camera system, external hard drives, document camera and a video camera to document all pre-procurement and prebid and bidding conferences. —AKR