BAGUIO Mayor Benjamin Magalong has ordered the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) and the City Buildings and Architecture Office (CBAO) to monitor construction sites in the city and halt projects that have no permits to present allowing them to proceed with their projects.
Under the new directive, the BCPO will now include in their patrols ongoing construction projects to determine whether they have the appropriate building permits.
“We are taking this campaign seriously since this is a very crucial issue in our city. It is not just an issue of safety but also of health and sanitation, all of which are critical factors affecting the well-being of our residents,” Magalong said.
Structures found by the BCPO to be undergoing construction without appropriate permits will be reported by the cops to the CBAO where they will be meted out with appropriate sanctions.
The move was prompted by the recently undertaken inventory of buildings in the city, which found that 80 percent or 96,000 of the city’s roughly 120,000 structures have no building permits, which may result in substandard and illegal construction projects to slip through the cracks.
“This is so unfortunate and we have yet to determine how many of these have no septic tanks, how many are unsafe, how many unsafe structures are being rented out to students and visitors, among other concerns,” Magalong said.
