THE FIRE that struck a high-rise building under construction in Kasambagan, Cebu City last Friday (April 14, 2023) has lit up again public discussion on whether the height of buildings in the city must be regulated.
It’s not a new question, to be sure. The last time it was tackled in the open was five years ago, after fire hit Metro Ayala at the Cebu Business Park on January 5, 2018. The 2018 fire started at the toys stockroom on the third floor, going up to the topmost floor, and ultimately destroying the entire supermarket. Smoke billowed from the area, which, as the sight usually does, brought anxiety among residents who doubted if the city’s firefighters could beat it.
It took two days to place the Metro fire under control but no one was reported injured and the blaze didn’t spread to the main mall. Compared to last Friday’s fire at Grand Residences -- which damaged the fourth up to the 35th floor of the condo but took only nine hours to control and spared another condo, located beside it and already occupied -- the Metro Ayala fire five years ago affected a structure of only three stories or so.
OSMEÑA’S PLAN. And yet at the time, mayor Osmeña already talked of regulating construction of tall buildings in the city. He did so, he said, a year before the Metro Ayala fire. Social media reactions to Osmeña’s plan included the appeal not to ban high-rise buildings as that might “curb development,” instead, upgrade the equipment of the fire department, they asked. “That’s how modern cities deal with it.”
In one comment on the Tommy Osmeña Facebook page, the mayor griped that the media kept using the word “ban” as if “it’s going to be forever.” What he meant, he said, was that “UNTIL (the caps are his) we do have the capability to address fires in high-rises, and this takes time, it would be prudent to temporarily halt the addition of more structures whose tenants we cannot save.” Assessing public mood, Tomas said, “everyone will be against me on this issues until an actual fire occurs.”
He was only for a temporary ban until the City would get the equipment. News reporter Rene Borromeo put it thus then: “The correct term then is suspend approval of permits for construction of high-rise buildings.”
Even though it was the responsibility of the National Government to supply the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), Osmeña disclosed, “we bought a ladder truck that would reach 18 stories.” That cost the City P56 million. Ladder trucks, he said, are expensive and the higher the reach, the steeper the price.
NO SUSPENSION. Apparently though, since then, construction of high-rise buildings has not been halted or suspended. And the BFP equipment for that tall-building fire consists reportedly of three units of fire truck whose ladder can reach only 18 stories or 54 meters high.
Thus, the question that people asked watching live video of the Kasambagan fire was, “How can they (the firefighters) go up there?”
LADDERS NOT THE PROBLEM? Interestingly though, news accounts about the firefighters’ work won’t tell us if the lack of tall ladders was a handicap. Senior Fire Officer Wendell Villanueva of the Cebu City Fire Office, claiming competence and capability (“Kapable ra man gud ta”), said they were able to stop the fire from spreading to the already-opened condo building beside it.
It was tough work, Villanueva said, because they didn’t expect the fire, which started at the top floor, to spread to the lower floors so quickly. He didn’t blame the ladders though for the difficulties.
CONTRASTING VIEWS. Osmeña -- who lost in 2019, a year after the Metro Ayala fire, to Edgardo Labella and whose wife Margot lost in 2022 to Mike Rama -- wouldn’t want more high-rise buildings unless the builder or the national government would provide the trucks with taller ladders.
Unlike his predecessor Tomas, Mayor Mike said he is “open” to improving the capabilities of the local fire force, without talking about the national government’s duty to supply them, as Osmeña did. Tomas said then, “If local governments were given more autonomy to address their own problems, we would have less issues like this.”
NOT IN PRIORITIES LIST. He didn’t say it but Mayor Mike can be operating under circumstances different from those in former mayor Osmeña’s term. Perhaps the review of fire-fighting capability that Rama announced during the fire would show how to cope with the problem.
But as his constituents must notice, the mayor has a lot on his plate since his third regular term began on June 30, 2022. Unsurprisingly, the problem of fire in high-rise buildings wasn’t included, or wasn’t placed up front, in the list of priorities for the ambition to make the city “Singapore-like.”
But the policy of suspending the entry of more tall buildings in the city -- as alternative to boosting the fire force’s capability -- is one that the City Council must take part in adopting or rejecting.