By SAMMY JULIAN
Manila News Bureau Chief
MANILA – For an easy-to-follow reference in monitoring and overseeing construction and repair activities, particularly in areas severely devastated by super typhoon “Yolanda” last year, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is launching a handbook.
The “Simplified Construction Handbook for School Buildings” is meant to complement the revised school building design in the country to ensure that all levels of construction personnel – from the supervising engineers and architects to the foremen – interpret the design in the same way and achieve disaster-resiliency standards.
JICA is an agency of the Japanese government responsible for implementing the technical cooperation, grant aid and yen loan programs of Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries such as the Philippines.
It is the world’s largest bilateral aid agency with about $10.3 billion in financial resources and a network of more than 100 overseas offices around the world.
Based on recent available data from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRMMC), a total of P19.5 billion worth of Infrastructure were damaged due to “Yolanda”.
Of this amount, over P2-billion worth of damage were inflicted on schools in hard-hit areas.
Estimates of the Department of Education (DepEd), on the other hand, pegged the number of damaged schools in varying degrees at 3,000.
As support to the “build back better” approach of the Philippine government, JICA assisted Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in reviewing Philippine standard school building designs.
JICA dispatched to the Philippines experts on architecture and construction from Osaka University; Polytechnic University of Japan; Penta-Ocean Construction, a leading Japanese producer of construction technology; and the International Association for Wind Engineering (IAWE), an international group of scientists and engineers.
Experts studied the quality of materials, construction practices, and maintenance of structures in disaster-hit areas in the country, particularly in the Visayas areas, said JICA Philippines Office representative Atsuko Itsuki.
“The Japanese experts’ assessment on the damaged school structures in Bohol and Leyte revealed that the design is only a key in building disaster-resilient structures,” the JICA representative to Manila noted. “The execution of the design, proper construction supervision, and quality control are equally important in delivering resilient buildings.”
Itsuki pointed out that the simplified handbook addresses the gaps in building resilient school buildings, namely executing proper construction and supervision and quality control.
He explained that with the use of illustrations and simple descriptions, the handbook explains the critical processes in building construction, including the importance of laying out the building on the ground, to the proper construction methodologies and up to its completion; which can be easily understood by personnel involved before, during, and after construction.
Itsuki said the handbook will be distributed to local offices of the DPWH and DepEd.
He added that although the handbook is meant for school building construction, it can likewise be used for construction of residential houses./PN
