PICE FULFILLS MISSION
Several significant activities where held including distribution of relief assistances to neighboring quake-affected provinces and training other local engineers on seismic and rapid assessment on building structures
THE month-long observance of civil engineering profession has finally ended with several significant activities held in local communities in Davao City and in nearby provinces especially where the most affected victims of earthquake are.
In the city, the celebration started November 4 through a thanksgiving mass offered by the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers (Pice)-Davao City Chapter, a motorcade from the Department of Public Works and Highways Davao Regional Office going to the
City Hall of Davao for a courtesy visit to Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
After the preliminaries, engineer Arnel L. Villalba, chapter president, said the team, in partnership with the Pice National immediately proceeded to North
Cotabato to distribute significant relief assistance to communities of the province affected by the series of earthquakes that hit Mindanao. The team brought with them five structural experts from the Local Government Unit of Quezon City requested by Pice National president, Asean engineer Dr. Erdsan Rene S. Suero, to help the local structural engineers of the province on their rapid assessment on building structures.
On November 6, to provide the local engineers in Davao City with the necessary information how earthquakes affect the soundness of building structures, Suero said the institution initiated a free seminar on seismic and rapid assessment on building structures and requested engineer Ruel B. Ramirez, a renowned structural engineer from Manila, to lead the training.
In support to the call of Pice National for a massive structural education campaign, engineer Villalba said he, with City engineer-lawyer Joseph Dominic S. Felizarta and engineer Cary H. Beatisula, Managing Structural Engineer of CH Beatisula, guested at the November 14 edition of
Maayong Buntag Mindanao to alert the public on how and what to do during earthquakes.
To make the civil engineering month celebration more colorful, they also went back to North Cotabato last November 15 to distribute hygienic kits to the hundreds of families affected by the earthquakes.
A mangrove planting and coastal clean-up drive at Punta Dumalag was likewise conducted along with a sports festival held at Rancho Palos Verdes Clubhouse participated not only by colleagues in civil engineering profession but by civil engineering students from all the colleges and universities of the City.
Pice-Davao City Chapter culminated the celebration on November 27 by giving food supplies and other stuff to the city’s Home for Sick and Malnourished by Missionaries of Charity.
The Civil Engineering Month is celebrated every November 1-30 by virtue of Proclamation No. 439 signed by former president Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III on November 5, 2012 declaring the whole month of November as Civil Engineering Month.