"They are works in progress"

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young welcomes the move of the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate the school buildings in Cebu City that were found with structural defects and lacking stairways or fire exits.

He hopes, though, that the Ombudsman will give the city a chance to explain.

Young said he will invite Assistant Visayas Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago to his office so he could show her the plans of the school buildings that allegedly have no stairways.

The school buildings indicated by the Department of Education (DepEd) 7, he said, were all works in progress and will have their second stairways during the phase 2 of the project.

“We’re not doing it randomly, we plan things. These buildings pointed by DepEd, sumpayanan pa ni sila. When we put another set of rooms, we will also put another stairway. That’s how we do things because our money comes in installment basis,” Young said.

He said that they construct buildings using the money that is available at the moment. 

“Usahay dugay man kayo muabot ang kwarta sa DepEd, so wala mi’y mahimo, we still have to pursue the construction but we really intend to construct another set of classrooms na isumpay sa first building,” he added.

Young said the Ombudsman might have been misled by the reports where he was quoted as saying that putting fire exits or stairways for students’ safety is not his priority.

“That is not what I meant. When I said not a priority, I meant it was not a priority to correct the deficiencies on the old buildings, which were built way before they started requiring two-door rooms,” he said.

He even showed reporters a picture of new buildings built by the city that all have two-door rooms.

He also denied that Basak Community School has one stairway as reported. The second stairway at Inayawan Elementary School, on the other hand, is being constructed which started last December.

“If you check our finished buildings, you would find that this has 2-3 even 4 stairways. Examples of these are in City Central, Tisa Elementary School and Ramon Duterte High School to name a few,” Young said. (FREEMAN)