AN official from the Office of City Building Official (Ocbo) will strictly monitor the billboards in Davao City following the collapse of a billboard along Quimpo Boulevard, noting that around 80 percent of billboards in the city have violated certain building laws.
Architect Khashayar Toghyani, Ocbo officer-in-charge, said Executive Order (EO) No. 27, which “temporarily suspends the issuance of new building permits for billboard owners,” is still in effect. The order was signed by former Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte.
According to her EO, most of the city billboards are violating Presidential Decree No. 1096 also known as National Building Code, and its other related laws and ordinances.
Thus, billboard permits for these owners are temporarily suspended.
“After the stoppage, the billboards were investigated within the city, and it was found that almost 80% of billboards have violations,” Toghyani said.
He said these violations include illegal mounting of billboards, wrong sizes, and traffic obstruction.
Because of these, Toghyani pointed out some of these violations might have contributed to the collapsed billboard along Quimpo Boulevard last Thursday.
“I believe kini (na company owner) na-issuehan na ni siya og notice of violation (they were issued a notice of violation),” he said.
“Gina-neglect nila among mga notices, so karon since nahitabo na (accident), gina-open na pod nako na sa City Legal (They neglect our notices, but because of the recent accident, we are reopening their violations to the City Legal), we like to take legal action against them,” he said, adding that their office have been issuing the notices since 2018.
Because of this incident, Toghyani said the Ocbo-Davao will conduct a meeting with the billboard owners this week.
“This time tungod atong disgrasya mas i-enforce namo, mas istrictohan namo (Because of the incident, we will enforce more, we will be stricter in implementing the EO),” he said.
“Ang gusto nako pangutan-on sa ilaha (We want to ask to them) on what grounds sila ga-operate ana, gacollect sila og payment (they operate and collected their payment) from their clients without paying the taxes,” he added.
“Kay most probably wala pod sila’y business permit for that, dili sila ka-renew (Most probably they also have no business permit and they cannot renew) without our building permit and signage permit,” he further added. ICE