Engineers check safety of public school buildings—DepEd

MANILA, Philippines—Municipal engineers have started reassessing the structural integrity of public school buildings within their respective localities as part of readiness measures, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said Tuesday.

Asked about earthquake preparedness measures in place in Philippine schools, Luistro said local engineering officials have initiated a fresh round of building inspections nationwide.

“All school buildings are now being reassessed. It actually started last year,” Luistro told reporters.

“LGUs [local government units] are taking the lead into looking at the structural integrity of the school buildings. The local engineering departments have the capability to check and it’s better for an independent team to check,” he said.

More than 40,000 public schools, with several buildings each, undergo annual engineering inspections.

Luistro also expressed confidence that schools not older than five years were built in compliance with building code regulations and could withstand earthquakes.

Department of Education chief engineer Oliver Hernandez said in an earlier interview that public schools building were designed to withstand earthquakes of up to intensity 7.0 (not magnitude).