Unfit workers at real estate firm

I was working out on Monday at Club 650, a gym in Libis, Quezon City, when I heard two big thuds coming one after the other from the roof, apparently caused by falling objects.

When I asked the gym’s janitor what caused the noise, he showed me a box full of slabs of concrete and other debris.

The slabs, the janitor said, came from a building under construction near the gym.

There is a 15-meter gap which separates the multi-story building  from the gym.

The building has safety nets to catch falling debris so the slabs were obviously deliberately thrown from the structure owned by Nuvoland, a real estate firm engaged in building condominiums.

Building officials admitted that disgruntled construction workers would at times throw debris on the gym’s roof to vent their anger.

On June 2, a big slab hurled from the Nuvoland condominium went through the roof of Club 650 and landed a few meters away from a group of elementary school pupils in a physical education class at the gym.

“(Nuvoland) would like to stress and reiterate that no one was harmed during these (other rock-throwing) isolated incidents, yet Nuvoland promptly addressed any matter and damage that it may have inadvertently caused,” said Sheilah E. Uyboco, the firm’s assistant vice president for legal and documentation.

“There being no injured party per se, and the owners and management of Club 650 not having [filed] a complaint, the incident you spoke of should not have been made fodder for obviously malicious intentions to malign the name and reputation of Nuvoland Philippines Inc. in the name of responsible journalism,” she added in a letter to this writer Wednesday.

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Uyboco was referring to my commentary on my radio program over dwIZ on Monday in which I criticized Nuvoland for not acting on the slab-throwing incident which could have injured or killed one of the students in the gym.

If the firm had promptly acted on the incident, why did the rock-throwing continue?

The issue is not that nobody was hurt in the June 2 incident, but that it happened at all.

I spoke with Uyboco over the phone Wednesday regarding her letter and she told me that Nuvoland could not watch over its construction workers “24/7.”

I told her that it’s the firm’s duty to screen all its construction workers to weed out the unfit from those who are not.

Throwing debris from the building that might hit innocent people on the ground is an irresponsible, if not dangerous act.

Why would a prospective condominium resident buy from Nuvoland when its units were built by   irresponsible people?

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Retired Maj. Gen. Ramon Montano, former chief of the defunct Constabulary (forerunner of the Philippine National Police), is joining the senatorial race.

Montano, who was presidential assistant on military affairs during the administration of President Ramos, said that he would represent “the soldiers and policemen who joined the people at Edsa in 1986.”

Edsa 1986, Montano said, toppled a regime that abused political and economic power “so true reforms could be realized through people power empowerment.”

But the dream of Edsa 86 remains a dream decades later, said Montano, who—as PC chief— stood by President Cory during the 1989 coup attempt.