By MAE SINGUAY
BACOLOD City — School buildings in two primary schools here lacked fire exits, and the City Engineer’s Office (CEO) blamed itself for it.
The CEO admitted failing to build fire exits in the school buildings of Mariano Medalla Integrated School and Sum-ag Elementary School.
Aladino Agbones, assistant engineer, said he might have been overworked and has overlooked things, including the need to process fire permits.
“Our office is currently processing the permits at the Office of the Building Official (OBO) and the Bureau of Fire (Protection),” said Agbones.
A member of the Parent-Teacher-Community Association of Sum-ag Elementary School in Barangay Sum-ag complained with OBO that the school lacked a fire exit.
OBO later discovered that Mariano Medalla Integrated School in Barangay Pahanocoy also lacked one.
According to Agbones, there is no need to build a fire exit if a building has wide lobbies and enough number of staircases.
It was learned that Mayor Monico Puentevella has already issued Mariano Medalla Integrated School a certificate of completion.
Isidro Sun, acting OBO head, pointed out that a fire permit is different from the building permit./PN
