Benitez points to design failure in Zambo stilt housing project

BRIDGE FALLS DOWN Representatives Abelardo Benitez (in striped shirt) and Celso Lobregat, Zamboanga City Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar and other officials clamber up the footbridge that collapsed into murky water. The bridge leads to the relocation site at Sitio Hongkong in Barangay Rio Hondo. —PHOTO COURTESY OF RMN ZAMBOANGA

There seems to be a failure in design and safety considerations in the the Zamboanga City Roadmap to Recovery and reconstruction (Z3R) housing project, but officials of the National Housing Authority (NHA) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) were pointing at each other, a lawmaker said at a House inquiry on Tuesday.

At the House hearing into the February 2018 collapse of a housing unit in the Z3R housing project, Rep. Albee Benitez, chair of the House committee on housing and urban development, lamented the apparent downgrading of the quality of materials used in the P53-million housing project for some 240 families affected by the city siege by fighters of the Moro National Liberation Front.

“There seems to be a failure in design and safety considerations of the project NHA should be the lead agency to be on the look out on this project… Kumbaga substandard na ‘yung mga materials na ginamit substandard pa ang design,” Benitez said.

Chito Cruz, NHA General Manager when the project started in 2016, said they green-lighted the use of gmelina and acacia mangium wood instead of yakal, a stronger species of wood, after DENR recommended it during their March 31, 2015 Local-Inter-Agency Committee (LIAC) meeting.

Current DENR Regional Director Carlito Tuballa has admitted that gmelina wood is “not advisable” to be used for the housing on stilts project in Zamboanga City.

The NHA originally proposed the use of concrete but due to budget constraints, it decided to use yakal wood. But at the time, the project’s contractor, Limestone Construction Development & Corporation, said the type of wood was scarcely available so they used gmelina and acacia species of wood instead.

“We discourage it to be submerged in water. Even in our recommendation we said ang nakabaon sa tubig mas ok kung cement tapos sa taas gmelina… Yakal pwede pero gmelina hindi advisable,” Tuballa said.

“Hanggang recommendation lang ang DENR. We can only the recommend what can be a substitute pero nasa sa inyo at sa contractor pa rin yung changes sa structural engineering design,” he added.

But Cruz insisted that they proceeded with the project as recommended by DENR and as approved by the LIAC, the policy-making body for the Z3R project.

“We’re getting a different opinion now. Because the former DENR said it is allowed. We’re getting mixed signals from DENR, your honor,” Cruz said.

Tuballa said the gmelina species of wood is almost half the price of yakal and is of “weaker and inferior” quality.

The said inquiry was also prompted by the collapse of a wooden footbridge in Barangay Rio Hondo, Zamboanga where Benitez, Rep. Celso Lobregat, Zamboanga, Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar, and several officials NHA officials fell from.

The walkway was built in 2016 as part of Z3R NHA housing project.

For his part, current NHA General Manager Marcelino Escalada Jr. admitted that “there is failure in the design as I see it.

“Gmelina is not an appropriate wood for stilt housing. When I assumed in June 2016 the project was substantially completed except for phase 4,” Escalada explained.

“I already directed to consider redesigning and consider concrete. It will happen again if NHA did not rectify this,” he added.

Benitez reiterated his earlier suggestion  that those who made the design be placed in preventive suspension.

“Liable for this yung gumawa ng design. You should put them in suspension, we cannot allow them there na alam nating may history ng kapalpakan,” he said.

Rep. Edgar Sarmiento, author of House Resolution 1709 which called for the inquiry, pleaded that the NHA do its job properly.

“I am pleading to NHA, we’re hoping that this time you’ll build houses for the less fortunate Filipinos that they will be proud of… Make the Filipinos proud of themselves,” Sarmiento said. /muf

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