Osmeña favors bill on emergency escape hoods
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña favors the proposed House bill seeking to compel all high-rise building owners in the country to make available emergency escape hoods for the mall-goers, visitors, or workers during fire incidents.
The mayor said this is a good move of Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan affiliated South District Representative Rodrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa for it improves the firefighting capability of the building structures.
“That’s a step in the right direction,” Osmeña told reporters at the press conference yesterday.
In fact, as an initiative of the city government, the mayor will be inviting experts in order to identify what are the best ways to improve the firefighting capability of high-rise buildings.
High-rise buildings are those establishments with six floors or more than 19 meters tall.
“We are going a little bit deeper because I am calling a forum and we’re inviting experts and we have to do an analysis on what we have to do,” he said.
The mayor was prompted to call for a forum two weeks from now after he observed that sprinklers being put up at the buildings were not operational.
“I’m terrified because I have not heard a single case of a building where the fire was put out because of sprinklers...Two cases, sprinklers didn’t work, the one in Davao and Cebu,” Osmeña said.
To recall, early last month, Metro Ayala was hit by a fire which took two days before it was finally put out by the Bureau of Fire Protection.
However, Barug Team Rama affiliated Councilor Jose Daluz III said this proposed legislative measure of Abellanosa is not “feasible” saying malls cannot provide enough emergency hoods for the customers.
“I don’t think it’s feasible. A mall with thousands of customers cannot provide each with one,” he told The FREEMAN.
Daluz added it was already stipulated in the Building Code of the Philippines that all building structures should have an emergency exit.