During a Sept. 29, 2026 Cebu City Council executive session, Councilor Dave Tumulak and contractor Pericles Dakay flagged unresolved electrical deficiencies at the Cebu City Medical Center.
A 2025 audit by professional electrical engineer Brian Pasilan's team revealed severe safety hazards, including an uncommissioned synchronizing panel, incomplete bus ducts, and missing grounding systems.
Contractor Pericles Dakay stated that his company inherited these unresolved mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection problems from previous phases when they started work on Feb. 12, 2026.
SERIOUS electrical deficiencies identified in a 2025 audit of the Cebu City Medical Center have been partly addressed, but not all of the problems have been fixed, according to a city councilor and the contractor handling the hospital’s Phase 5 construction.
Councilor Dave Tumulak and Phase 5 contractor Pericles Dakay, an engineer, flagged the unresolved wiring problems during an executive session of the Cebu City Council Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026.
The deficiencies were among those identified by a volunteer electrical audit team that inspected the hospital from August to September 2025, according to professional electrical engineer Brian Pasilan, a member of the team.
“Very unsafe”
Pasilan said the audit found problems involving the generator system, synchronizing panel, bus duct, distribution panels, wiring, conduits and grounding system.
“If I may say honestly, it’s very unsafe as of now,” Pasilan said when Tumulak asked how safe the CCMC was based on the audit findings.
He said the synchronizing panel (a control panel that allows two or more generators to operate together safely) had not been commissioned, the generator set room was incomplete and cables needed to connect the generators to the switchgear had not been installed.
The bus duct system, which carries electrical power to the hospital floors, was also incomplete. Testing results had not been submitted, while the audit team observed substandard installation methods and misalignment.
Pasilan also said the approved plans specified intermediate metallic conduit (IMC) for essential electrical systems, but mostly PVC conduits were being used or stored. The hospital also lacked a reliable grounding system, he said.
The permanent generator was not operational, leaving the hospital dependent on smaller temporary units. The fire pump also could not be considered operational because its wiring was incomplete.
Photographs presented to the council showed what Pasilan described as “spaghetti wiring,” including exposed wires in front of panel boards and unidentified wiring on some floors.
Inherited problems
Dakay said his company began work on Feb. 12, 2026, and inherited problems involving mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems from previous phases. He said the deficiencies affected Phase 5 because the systems were interconnected, although his company was not contracted to correct Phases 1 to 4.
He said additional costs would be incurred to correct deficiencies from previous phases, but he could not estimate the amount. Bus duct rectification had earlier been estimated at P24 million to P30 million.
Phase 5 was awarded to Dakay Construction and Development Corp. for P683.94 million.
Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña urged the council to separate accountability issues from the immediate need to make the hospital operational, citing the elevator and generator set as priorities.
“We have to make the hospital at least operational,” Osmeña said, noting that accountability issues could take years to resolve while patients continue to rely on the facility. / CAV