City defers additional projects of school contractor

CEBU, Philippines -  The Cebu City Council yesterday held two pending contracts with MLDSR Construction worth at least P3 million until the contractor is able to rectify the school building in barangay Toong that was found with structural defects.

 Councilor Roberto Cabarrubias, who moved for the deferment of the resolution supposedly to authorize the mayor to enter into and sign a contract with the construction company, said it will be held until the building is ready for occupancy.

 The contracts held are for the renovation of flooring tiles in Carbon Market Unit 1 worth P2.6 million and the construction of the proposed extension of Multi-purpose building in barangay Busay worth P439,793.14.

 These projects were bid out and awarded when the city was still not aware of the complaints against them.

 The subject building is the two-storey building with six classrooms in Toong Integrated School constructed in 2006 but already has cracks in the columns, beams, slabs and wall joints due to “failure of concrete.”

 This failure was indicated in the result of the rebound hammer test conducted by engineers from the Department of Engineering and Public Works.

 MLDSR representatives met with city officials and the principal of the school yesterday and admitted that the problem could have been in the mixture of the cement.

 MLDSR promised to correct the defects since there is a 15-year warranty for structural defects.

 In fact, they have started applying the remedies but they were stopped by the DEPW because the city engineers required them to pass a structural computation.

 June Nadine Sison, chief of the DEPW Construction Division, said they have to take a look at the structural computation first or the proposal on how the contractor will undergo the remedies to check if it is within standards.

 She said this would be better than starting now and would have to repeat later because the remedies applied did not pass the standards. —(FREEMAN)