UP, Nanyang Tech hold training on seismic strengthening of school buildings

MANILA, Philippines – The University of the Philippines Diliman, Institute of Civil Engineering in partnership with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) of Singapore will train a total of 60 faculty members, postgraduate students, government officials, and engineers as “master trainers” on seismic strengthening of school buildings.

The training program entitled, “Training and Capacity Building Programme on Seismic Strengthening for Master Trainers and Local Builders in Luzon and the Visayas, Philippines”, aims to promote good construction practices and impart earthquake engineering strengthening techniques to participants representing these two regions. Specifically, the program will train 60 master trainers who will then train a total of 240 local builders in the strengthening and retrofitting of public school buildings to be identified in the regions. The training of master trainers will be conducted in three batches at different locations in the country with 20 participants per batch.

The first batch of this very timely and relevant training program shall be held from February 27 to March 2 at the Audio Visual Room, Library Building of the UP Cebu Campus, Gorordo Avenue in Lahug, Cebu City.

Experts from NTU shall fly in to Cebu and complete the group of UPD resource persons for this run. They are Prof. Li Bing, Director of the Natural Hazard Research Centre of NTU; Dr. Huang Yin, Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University ; and Prof. Pan Tso Chien, Executive Director of Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management of NTU.

They will be joined by local experts namely; Dr. Benito M. Pacheco, Project Manager of this Training Program and at the same time UP Diliman Vice Chancellor for Research and Development; Dr. Jaime Y. Hernandez Jr., Head of the Structural Engineering Group of the UPD Institute of Civil Engineering (UPD-ICE); Dr. Fernando J. Germar, Associate Professor of the UPD-ICE; Engr. Oliver R. Hernandez, Department of Education Director; OIC Ishmael Narag of PHIVOLCS Seismology Division; Engr. Willy Lopez of DPWH;  Engr. Ronaldo S. Ison of R.S. Ison & Associates; and Engr. Frederick Sison.

An inaugural function shall be held at 9:00 a.m. February 27 at the UP Cebu Audio Visual Room and a press conference will be held at Harolds Hotel at 12noon on the same day. The valedictory function and distribution of participants’ certificates shall be on 2 March 2012 at 4:00 p.m.

For more information about the training program, please email [email protected].