Rama to sack OBO chief

CEBU, Philippines – Mayor Michael Rama yesterday announced his plan to “overhaul” the city’s Office of the Building Officials because of several complaints.

The impending revamp makes OBO chief Engineer Josefa Ylanan the number one casualty. The mayor admitted that Ylanan will be relieved but will remain at the Department of Engineering and Public Works.

Ylanan said she is always prepared to leave her office anytime once she receives the order from the mayor. In fact, she already told Rama during their previous meeting that she is willing to give up his post.

The National Building Code of the Philippines provides that no person shall be appointed as a building official unless she or he is a Filipino of good moral character, a registered architect or civil engineer, and with at least five years of professional experience in building design and construction.

The building official shall be primarily responsible for the enforcement of the provisions of the building code.

In the performance of her duties, the building official may enter any building or its premises at all reasonable times to inspect and determine compliance with the requirement of the law.

Any deviations from the approved building plans, the building officials can immediately order the work stoppage until the specified plans are complied with.

Rama admitted he was already fed up of the complaints he received against the alleged illegal activities of some OBO personnel.

Some complaints include the delay in the processing of the building permit applications which sometimes prompted applicants to cough up money to speed up the processing of the documents.

The mayor said he might pull out some technical personnel from the various departments of the City Hall and reassigned them to the OBO. Another option that the mayor is looking at is the possibility of hiring new technical personnel to fill up the needs.

Ylanan said she needs at least 32 technical personnel, particularly civil engineers and architects, to review the building plans and to conduct site inspections of building constructions.

At present OBO only have 15 technical personnel making it hard for them to accommodate requests from the City Council to conduct inspections to all boarding and lodging houses during the opening of classes to ensure the safety of students.

Ylanan earlier claimed to have made numerous requests for additional personnel in the past years but these were not acted upon. (THE FREEMAN)