To ensure students as well as school personnel safe from fire, the Quezon City government has intensified its inspection of public schools to fix and rehabilitate poor electrical wiring installed some 30 years ago or more.
The order came from Mayor Herbert “Bistek” Bautista after he was briefed by the city engineering office on the current conditions of some school buildings all over the city, especially those that were built some decades ago.
Engineering department chief Joselito Cabungcal told reporters that public elementary and high schools built way back in the 1980s, 1970s and beyond are mostly fire-traps.
“Our thrust now is to inspect all old school buildings because of their poor electrical wiring system,” he said.
The move to conduct massive inspections of public school buildings came after a fire recently hit a public high school in Project 6 because of poor electrical wiring.
Initial investigation showed its electrical wiring was no longer suitable to the high power consumption of the school facility.
“That triggered the inspection. We want to keep the children safe from the risk of fire in school,” the city officials said.
In a related development, Bautista said he also instructed the concerned city officials to address the power and water pilferage by informal settlers in depressed communities near many public schools.
“Poor residents of Barangay Commonwealth were getting electricity from the Commonwealth National High School. The city was billed over P100,000 per month,” Cabungcal said.
At Rondon High School in Project 6, slum dwellers within the area had tapped their pipeline system to the school’s water connection system, the city chief engineer said.
“We are now collaborating efforts with the city schools superintendent,” Cabungcal said.