City to cover all manholes

CEBU, Philippines — To prevent another casualty due to an open digging, Cebu City Mayor Edgardo said the city government will cover all the open manholes and culverts in the city.

In a press conference, Labella said the city will investigate the death of a child who fell into the open culvert over the weekend.

“All the open manholes, it will be dealt with when we will have our massive dredging of all the waterways, canals and creeks of the city,” he told reporters.

The body of five-year-old John Clark Ebua fell into a culvert at the Sitio Exoville, Barangay Basak Pardo, Cebu City was found more than 24 hours since the incident happened.

The child’s body was found at a river in Cogon Pardo, Sunday, about 1.2 kilometers from Barangay Basak-Pardo.

The incident reached to the Children’s Legal Bureau wherein Lawyer Noemi Truya-Abarientos encouraged the family to visit her office so they can discuss if there are child rights violated.

Abarientos said if there was human negligence that led to the death of the minor, action will be taken.

“But as it is, the city should assess how safe is the environment for children to prevent things like these from happening again.  If these are acts of God that we cannot do anything about, or a result of human negligence, something has to be done,” she told The FREEMAN.

As this developed, Labella said the city government will be treating the bereaved family like a calamity victim to avail of the financial assistance from the city on top of the burial assistance from the city.

The mayor will be meeting key people on his massive dredging and declogging of waterways in the city since the weather bureau has declared the onset of rainy season last month.

“Our city had those covers of the manholes but the problem was pangawaton man gud. Atong himoon nga simentohon. We used to have steel covers. Ipa timbang man gud tawn. What we will have to do nga to have it concreted nalang,” he said.

As to the liable people on the incident, Labella said he does not want to do finger-pointing.

He assured that the city government will do something to prevent the same incident in the future.

During the flag raising ceremony yesterday morning, Labella thanked the City Hall employees who rendered their services even on a weekend to respond to the incident in Basak Pardo where a child fell into culvert and a landslide in the mountain barangay.

He also thanked the volunteers who helped in retrieving the body of the boy. (FREEMAN)