BAGUIO CITY – Public Works Secretary Mark Villar ordered district engineers and technical personnel of the agency to make sure that no public structures will exist and will be built in identified geohazard areas to prevent life and limb from being unjustly compromised.
Villar, who was the guest of honor and speaker during the 14th National Convention of the District Engineers of the Philippines (DEPL) here, said that the memorandum covering the said directive was already circulated in all the regional and district offices for the guidance of all those concerned in the planning and implementation of the government’s major infrastructure projects to avoid a repeat of the tragic landslide incident in Banauel, Natonin, Mountain Province that buried a 4-storey building of the agency that caused the untimely death of 28 individuals.
“We do not want that the Natonin landslide incident will be repeated in other areas in the country that is why we will remain vigilant in looking for the appropriate measures to prevent the building of public structures in already established and identified geohazard sites,” Secretary Villar stressed.
He added the DPWH learned a hard lesson from the Natonin experience that is why the agency will not compromise the safety and stability of structures that are undergoing construction and those that will be constructed in the future.
According to him, the conduct of soil testing in areas where public structures will be built will be one of the major requirements that will be complied by the project implementers aside from the geohazard assessment that will be done so that public safety will not be compromised and that the public works officials and employees will not again be blamed for the occurrence of similar incidents in the future.
Villar narrated the difficulty of DPWH personnel and contractors in clearing more than 30 huge landslides along the Paracelis to Natonin road at the height of the on-going search, rescue and retrieval operations just for them to reach ground zero, thus, the importance of putting in place appropriate measures that will ensure that no public structures will be constructed in geohazard areas already included in the geohazard maps of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB-CAR).
The DPWH Secretary also ordered the agency’s technical personnel to start revisiting the plans and specifications prepared for the construction of public structures to guarantee that the places where the said buildings will be constructed are not part of the geohazard areas in the country and for them to make the necessary recommendations on how to go about the building of the structures once the said facilities are within geohazard sites in the different parts of the country.
He emphasized that whatever lessons the agency learned from the Natonin experience will be utilized to improve the state of public infrastructure in the country considering that public safety is the utmost consideration in the building of the said structures that will be used by the public in general.
Villar pointed out the administration will not allow the repeat of the Natonin landslide incident because the loss of a life or a number of lives because of lapses in judgement will not be tolerated by the agency.
By Dexter A. See