EDITORIAL - Crumpled building

As of evening yesterday, the death toll from the collapse of a nine-story building under construction in Angeles, Pampanga stood at four, with 17 other people still missing and believed buried in the rubble.

The crumpling structure struck an adjacent apartelle, killing a Malaysian tourist. Rescue and retrieval operations have been complicated by the difficulty of safely moving the rubble of concrete and twisted metal.

Probers said there were 47 people at the site in Balibago when the structure collapsed on Sunday. Two construction workers were among the dead, with more missing, while 26 people have been rescued.

The Department of Labor and Employment office in Central Luzon said that in September last year, a plain-view inspection of the site by DOLE personnel led to a work stoppage order due to violations of occupational safety standards. Among the violations were the lack of construction safety nets and proper lighting at the site as well as safety gear for the construction workers.

The DOLE said the hotel owner paid P100,000 in October and addressed the occupational safety deficiencies, and construction was allowed to proceed.

Probers are still trying to determine if cost-cutting or the use of substandard materials as well as faulty structural engineering might have violated building safety standards and caused the collapse, the DOLE said.

The project has a building permit from the local government, whose engineering office presumably has experts that can see a flawed building design or blueprint when they see one. A nine-story building reportedly with a rooftop pool requires a hefty investment. The presumption is that no one will want to waste that kind of money on a substandard structure especially in a country that is regularly visited by earthquakes and typhoons.

Still, cutting corners and substandard building designs are not unusual in this country. Such possibilities will be determined in an ongoing probe. Authorities must also determine if the workers at the site were provided the occupational safety protection set by law.

Accidents happen, but there are ways of minimizing the risk of their occurrence. The reason for the collapse of the structure along with possible accountability must be determined and appropriate penalties imposed to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.