STILL ON SENATE BILL NO. (SBN) 2235 TO CREATE THE SEPARATE OFFICE OF THE LOCAL BUILDING OFFICIAL (LBO) AT THE PROVINCIAL, CITY AND MUNICIPAL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT. The bill SBN 2235 is important as Sen. Marcos, Jr. is afforded the unique opportunity to CORRECT a major aberration in P.D. No. 1096, the National Building Code of the Philippines (NBCP), signed into law by his father, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos on 27 February 1977 (i.e. more than 37 years ago), which inexplicably put the municipal/ city engineers (MCEs), who were mainly trained in and responsible for horizontal infrastructure i.e. roads, bridges, flood control, water supply, sewerage, etc., in rather questionable charge of the regulation of buildings and other vertical infrastructure (even only as supposedly an interim arrangement i.e. to address an exigency, that has now lasted almost 4 decades). This apparent four (4)-decades old anomaly of having just one (1) natural person i.e. the MCE, occupying two (2) distinct positions of responsibility for public and private (horizontal and vertical) infrastructure has quite possibly not only resulted in the continuing violation of the NBCP (by the very persons and their staff in charge of the implementation and enforcement of the NBCP and who probably have neither the appreciation/ understanding nor respect for the NBCP) i.e. AS THERE IS APPARENTLY NO INSTITUTED TECHNICAL CHECK AND BALANCE MECHANISM AT ALL, but the situation has apparently also resulted in the very pitiful state of our natural and built environments, to wit: 1) rampant over-building (even on land where there should be no buildings/ structures above and below ground); 2) rampant over-paving (even on land or surfaces which should not be paved, as provided by law); 3) illegal structures such as shanties and non-mobile billboards (in places where these should not be existing e.g. flood plains and danger zones along waterways in the case of shanties and wrapped around windows, openings and fire exits in buildings in the case of non-mobile billboards, etc.); 4) the loss of the public domain or of its portions to private interests e.g. road rights-of-way (RROWs) particularly the sidewalks, rights-of-way (ROWs), railroad ROWs (RRROWs), mandated legal easements (MLEs) along waterways (which are being illegally appropriated or reclaimed), parks and public open spaces, etc., including the attendant air rights and sub-surface rights to said examples of the public domain; 5) wrong siting of large mixed-use, commercial and residential developments that cause major environmental pollution and interminable traffic jams/ congestion in the already constricted RROWs; 6) lax implementation of parking requirements which have made our streets virtual parking lots i.e. private use of the public domain/ public resources (denying pedestrians and motorists their free way); 7) unsafe buildings and building access e.g. firetraps, lack of firewalls (and presence of operable openings on supposed firewalls, etc.), roads/ access-ways that do not afford proper firetruck access (due to removable obstructions), lack of proper or regular ingress/ egress, etc.; 8) unsafe public domain e.g. open manholes/ trenches/ road diggings, incomplete/ unsupervised/ interminable construction of public infrastructure (that cause serious accidents), etc.; 9) promotion of the wrong class and use of construction and finishing materials, and even building types, that are not intended for tropical, hot-humid, disaster-prone settings such as the Philippines; 10) wrong siting, orientation, construction and finishing of buildings that continually places the building occupants in harm’s way, that may cause disease/ sickness and that cause a lot of inconvenience; 11) the lack of enforcement of laws that protect persons with disabilities (PWDs), women, the elderly, children, etc.; 12) treeless streets that offer users no protection at all from the elements; lack of parks and public open spaces that can offer relief for urban dwellers; 13) unregulated practice of the building professions by non-professionals or by the wrong professionals e.g. civil engineers signing/ sealing architectural documents in clear violation of law i.e. Sec. 20.5 of R.A. No. 9266, The Architecture Act of 2004 (a special law on the practice of architecture on Philippine soil which unequivocably states that only registered and licensed architects/ RLAs shall prepare/ sign and seal such documents); 14) unsanitary practices such as discharges of solid waste, debris, raw sewage, incompletely treated/ untreated wastewater into the drainage system or into the waterways; the solidification of solid waste in the drainage system (making the same blocked and unfit to convey drainage/ storm water), etc.; the flashfloods that these wrong and prejudicial practices bring have undoubtedly exacerbated the effects of both natural and extreme events over the last 2 decades (contributing to immense suffering and huge economic losses for which the responsible parties such as quite possibly the concerned/ pertinent LBOs, MCEs and LGU officials, particularly the barangay officials, could be charged/ penalized); 15) a lot of wasted and repetitious (as distinguished from repetitive) construction that not only waste public funds but also create a lot of debris and danger/ inconvenience to the passing public; 16) improper construction practices e.g. mixing concrete on the carriageway portion of the RROW, draining wet concrete into the water drainage system (that clog the system); and 17) the lack of proper management of RROWs for trucks and other heavy vehicles that bring in construction materials, resulting in the destruction of good roads (and the resultant damage to private vehicles that use such damaged roads). Please note that some of the foregoing may not necessarily constitute force majeure events, but are potentially acts of criminal neglect for which the concerned parties (private persons, even designers, and potentially including LBOs, MCEs and other LGU officials, most especially the barangay officials who condone NBCP violations) could be haled to court and fined/ punished accordingly. Actually, a separate bill filed by Sen. Chiz Escudero i.e. SBN 430 calls for heavy penalties for LBOs who are incapable of discharging their mandates i.e. which has to primarily do with public safety and general welfare. If SBN 2235 is finally approved into law, more Architects can probably be regularly appointed as LBOs (already provided for under Sec. 206.2 of P.D. No. 1096, the 1977 NBCP but apparently with the implementation being blocked/ hindered by certain interested quarters), to finally effect the decades-old and truly urgent need to REVERSE what the concerned past LBOs may have done to the built environment since 1977. With the passage of this bill as a full measure i.e. a new statute/ law, there shall be a much better chance that the NBCP shall be fully implemented and enforced by qualified technical professionals who truly understand buildings, not just the structure of these buildings, but the architectonics of buildings, the spaces created within and without and a genuine appreciation of the needs of the intended or actual end-users/ occupants of such buildings. These should necessarily include the participation of all private sector professionals (architects and engineers alike) to bring true order to the chaos that is the Philippine built environment. With the additional manpower provided by the private sector professionals, this may even include the conduct of annual inspections of all residences, noting that many NBCP violations occur at residences after the occupancy permit is secured. Violations of the NBCP are violations, and the necessary fines/ penalties must be instituted by the LGUs concerned. The greater task is to have qualified LBOs first who can then educate the LGU officials in the nuances of NBCP interpretations, implementation and enforcement. A companion piece to this bill is the yet unfiled bill requiring a State-administered licensure examination for all LBOs i.e. provincial, city, municipal, and for all other building officials (BOs) for national agencies such as the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and the Tourism Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), and all of their assistant LBOs/ BOs and even the division chiefs (DCs) of the Offices of Building Officials (OBOs) that such LBOs/BOs head. Nothing follows.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 23:57:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015