Cops stationed at Hall of Justice

CEBU, Philippines - Policemen would be deployed at the Marcelo B. Fernan Hall Palace of Justice, not to prevent thieves from entering the supposedly abandoned edifice but to keep the employees away.

This is after Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama learned that court employees kept on entering the building even after it was declared unsafe to gather documents from inside their respective offices.

“We receive reports that this imprimatur (abandon the building) has been routinely violated, with people freely going in and out of the said building without escort and without guidance by our structural experts,” Rama said.

Holding of hearings have been suspended following the Oct. 15 earthquake and court employees has since held offices in tents outside the Hall of Justice.

But court records are still inside the building employees could not help but continue to go there. This is despite the declaration of City structural engineers that the building is already unsafe for occupancy.

Over the weekend, Rama sent a communication to Cebu City Police Office Director Noli Romana, Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation (ERUF)  chief of  operations  Dr. Medardo Batiller, and) Cebu City Fire Marshal Vonrad Dubluis to secure the building.

In his letter, Rama ordered Romana to send troops to the Hall of Justice, which is located inside the Capitol compound, it being still within the territorial jurisdiction of Cebu City.

“In this connection you (Romana) are hereby ordered to immediately mobilize such sufficient number of police units to secure the building and strictly implement the entry restrictions, as per guidelines set by the Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue teams,” the mayor said.

He was referring to the teams composed of representatives from the City Office of the Building Official, Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) that form the CSSR.

Rama, though, said that duly authorized court employees securing documents and conducting an inventory can still enter but must be escorted at all times by emergency crews.

This was reiterated by Atty. Jade Ponce, executive assistant to the mayor, whom Rama delegated to assist and address the needs of the judicial department.

In a telephone interview, Ponce told The FREEMAN that they are follo-wing a certain procedure on entering the Hall of Justice.

He explained that the employees who are tasked to retrieve the files, records or documents and do inventory in different offices from the ground to fourth floor shall first log his or her name and the office his heading to, and should be accompanied by an ERUF or a BFP rescue team.

This, Ponce said, is meant to monitor the person so that in a worst case scenario where the structure collapses rescuers can immediately pinpoint his approximate location.

Under the same guideline, court employees going to the third and fourth floors shall be accompanied by structural engineers and ERUF or BFP personnel to guide them.

 â€œNot more than 10 people should enter at any gi-ven time and should be accompanied by personnel from the BFP, ERUF or anyone from the Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue Teams,” Ponce said.

He would coordinate with Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Soliver Peras, Municipal Trial Court in Cities Executive Judge Francisco Seville, and City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon tomorrow to lay down the plans and to discuss the mayor’s order.

Ponce said an incident command post would also be set up at the Capitol compound starting tomorrow. — (FREEMAN)