Utility wires to be color-coded

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday welcomed the move of the utility firms to clamp the dangling wires in the city.

In his press conference, the mayor said he will ask a city councilor allied with the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan party to sponsor an ordinance assigning colors to different firms.

“My plan is this - we will color code all the wires because we don’t know who’s responsible for this wire that’s dangling. So we are going to change all the wires in Cebu City,” he told reporters.

He said the city will give time for the utility firms to change the color of their wires before hiring a service provider to cut the remaining black wires hanging in the city streets.

Osmeña said he has discussed the plan with the certain utility firm but the latter has not responded as of press time.

With this, he said he will ask his allies in the City Council to pass the ordinance.

“I kept on delaying it. Thanks for reminding me.  I will put my foot down…I don’t care if it’s a five-year program. So, we will schedule…next year, all black wires will be cut,” he said.

In the previous years, the dangling wires that were snagged by trailer trucks had caused death to some of the city’s residents.

In 2015, the previous members of the City Council passed a resolution reminding the utilities to comply with City Ordinance 1894, which requires them to place their lines underground to address the concern of overhead dangling spaghetti wires.

For aesthetic and safety purposes, various utility firms headed by the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) have started to bundle spaghetti wires with clamps in Cebu City.

VECO Chief Operating Officer Anton Mari Perdices, in a press conference, yesterday said that they have started to bundle these wires from corner F. Ramos Street to corner Juana Osmeña Street as the pilot area.

Perdices said that they will sit with Osmeña and bring the mayor to the area and see if he is amenable on the way they bundled the spaghetti wires.

It was Osmeña who requested Percides two weeks ago if VECO could take a lead in gathering everybody up in coming together with a solid plan in making it more beautiful and safe in the city.

Perdices said that, as a response, he met with representatives from PLDT, Globe, Smart, Skycable, and Eastern Telecom and asked them what they can do.

"We agree that it is possible and we can do it as a team and as a group. There's a lot of interconnected wires between the different utilities and not only one can do it, it has to be a group effort," Perdices said.

He added if Osmeña is okay with their bundled spaghetti wires at the pilot area, then they can proceed with the bundling of spaghetti wires at the city's major thoroughfares.

"Our ultimate goal is to continue this project until all are satisfied each of us as a utility to the best we can do from the visual and safety aspect," Perdices said.

The group is now waiting for Osmeña’s approval before coming up with a timeline for the implementation of the project city-wide.

"Please accept our solution," was the message of Perdices to Osmeña.

The group is hopeful that the mayor will approve it as it is the most realistic, practicable and less expensive method of bundling the spaghetti wires.

"It would be very expensive if we put our wires underground. Our solution is practical," said Edlin Jose delos Reyes, regional manager for Cable Engineering of Globe Telecom.

Rene Lescano, customer service operations zone head of PLDT and Smart, cited that in Iloilo City, where they were asked to put their wires underground, the company spent P54 million for a six-kilometer stretch.

"In Cebu City alone, the entire city would be about hundreds of kilometers," Lescano said.

Perdices also wanted to have a meeting with the representatives of the Cebu Truckers Association Inc. to discuss ways on how to make sure that the latter's containerized vans will not hit the wires of the different utilities.

Lescano said that among the reasons why container vans hit the wires are that the main roads are getting higher due to road improvements as well as the container vans now have higher heights.

"We have no control over the height of the container vans," said Lescano.

He said that cable wires have a height standard of 18 feet from the ground.

VECO's wires are above than other utilities as they are about two feet higher than the latter.

Meanwhile, a dump truck got entangled in a low-lying telco wires along F.E. Zuellig Avenue, Mandaue City at around 9 a.m. yesterday.

VECO, in a statement, said that the truck dragged the wires causing the collapse of a 45-feet primary pole and telco poles.

The VECO emergency team was immediately sent to the area to repair the damage which would take about 10 hours. (FREEMAN)