Firms urged: Fix leaning posts, spaghetti wires

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Council invited representatives of the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) and other public utility firms to appear on January 21 so they could explain why until now they have failed to remove leaning posts beside the roads.

Aside from VECO, City Council Secretary Cynthia M. Kahulugan also sent invitations to Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT), Sky Cable Television, BayanTel and Globelines.

Kahulugan said members of the City Council decided to invite the managers or representatives of the public utility companies to explain the continued presence of leaning posts and “spaghetti” wires, especially the dangling wires on the streets.

The city legislators would like to know from the public utility firms why they have not acted on the long-time request of the City Council to address the problem.

According to Kahulugan, the heads of these utility firms were also requested to submit to the City Council their respective short and long term plans on how to solve the problem on spaghetti wires.

A foreigner had previously aired criticism against the government’s failure to act immediately on the problem, saying that in the United States electrical connections are placed underground.

Late last year, a resident of barangay Calamba visited The FREEMAN editorial office to complain against electric posts that are already leaning towards the road, posing risk to residents and pedestrians.

VECO public affairs manager Ethel Natera explained that they are no longer using the leaning wooden posts that are subject of the complaint of the barangay Calamba resident.

She said VECO could not remove yet their old wooden posts because these are still used by other public utility firms. (FREEMAN)