‘Check contractor’s work’

Steel beams were added to support the ground-floor ceiling of the two-story building of the Toong Integrated School while epoxy was used to fill cracks in the second-story floor.

But Edwin Villamor, school principal, said government engineers should check the corrective measures put in place by MSLDR Construction to make sure their six-classroom structure is safe for occupancy.

Villamor also urged city officials to press the contractor to hasten the application of corrective measures on the building that remained unfinished after two months.

Villamor said MSLDR sent at least 10 workers in May to attach C-purlins and angular bars to support the first-floor ceiling. C-purlins are beams attached to roof trusses to support common rafters.

Villamor said the workers used grinders to widen to about two centimeters the cracks found on the three second-story classroom floors and lobby.

Epoxy has been applied on the cracks. Cracks on the lobby remain unattended.

“What happened? We now get nervous looking at these,” barangay captain Teotimo Bacalso told Villamor after he saw the widened cracks on the second floor.

The school principal said it seems the contractor is not taking the job seriously.

Only five of the 10 workers remained at work on the second floor. They reported for work on Monday morning and left in the afternoon.

They did not come back yesterday.

“When will they finish this? They just appear suddenly without prior notice and then suddenly disappear,” he told Cebu Daily News.

High school students who are supposed to use the new building continue to crowd the school stage and emergency classrooms shared with grade 2 pupils.

Toong Integrated school, 10 kilometers south of the Cebu City Hall has 937 students— 694 are in elementary and 243 are in high school.

The city-funded school building was built for third year and four year students.

It was already occupied in school year 2009- 2010.

But the classrooms were vacated after classes started in June because of fears about the building’s structural integrity.

The first floor ceiling was sagging and causing vibrations on the second floor, which showed cracks.

Parts of the building’s wooden window grills have been detached.