THE Cebu City Department of Engineering and Public Works (DEPW) will conduct an inventory on all damaged manholes in the city on Monday, July 15, 2019.

Five-year-old John Clark Ebua fell into an open box culvert while playing in the rain in Sitio Exoville, Barangay Basak-Pardo last Saturday afternoon, July 13. His body was found near the opening of the Tagunol Bridge in the barangay around 5:45 p.m. last Sunday.

Kenneth Carmelita Enriquez, DEPW head, said their maintenance division has been receiving requests for replacements of manhole and canal covers from various barangays, but there was no request from Barangay Basak-Pardo.

She said they will cover open manholes with steel plates while they wait for the permanent cover replacements to arrive.

“We’ll be installing signages to warn the people that this area is dangerous, especially cross drains areas... Usually cross drains do not have covers,” she added.

Meanwhile, City Councilor Dave Tumulak, committee on risk reduction chairman, said Ebua was already dead when rescuers fished his body out of the water after almost 27 hours of looking.

“The culvert, into which the child fell into, measures around four by 40 meters,” he said.

Members of the Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office, with other rescue units, started their retrieval operation past 2 p.m. last Saturday.

Barangay Captain Catalina Cabardo said that 1:45 p.m. on Sunday, rescuers transferred their focus from the culvert to its exit point in Tagunol Bridge, approximately a kilometer away.

According to her, they did not receive any reports about an uncovered box culvert in the area from sitio leaders.

“Since we just assumed office, we haven’t anticipated yet that there were these kinds of culverts here,” she said.

Cabardo said the information that came to her office was that in 2010, a request was made to cover the culvert.

“A sitio leader reportedly proposed this project to be included in the City’s budget for barangay infrastructure, but maybe they weren’t able to pay much attention to it,” she said in Cebuano.

She said residents had placed steel rods to warn pedestrians of the open culvert but these were stolen.

Cabardo said the boy might have been unfamiliar with the area because he was from the neighboring barangay of Kinsang-an.

Meanwhile, Cabardo assured that she would meet with her council to address the problem.

“That’s our first priority. We will consult with our constituents to check on the other open culverts in the area. We would also cover the culvert in Exoville the soonest possible. The barangay will shoulder the expenses. If we have to contribute our personal money, we will do that,” she said. (JJL/WBS)