Labella probes damage to equipment

This sight breaks the heart of Cebu City Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella who personally received the aerial fire ladder truck and water tanker from a Japanese donor. These valued equipment were left in the city’s junkyard to rust and could no longer be used (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA).

The failure to properly maintain an important aerial ladder truck and water tanker, earlier acquired by Cebu City through a donation, may have caused the equipment to end up in a junkyard, useless and left to rust.

A very dismayed Cebu City Vice Mayor Edgardo Labella wants the General Services Office (GSO) to answer why the city has failed to make full use of the equipment especially when the ladder, which can reach up to 200 meters high, is much needed for emergencies that may arise in the city’s skyscrapers.

“Why were these not properly maintained? If these were properly taken care of, I think it would not end up in the junkyard. We have to admonish them that all vehicles of the city should be properly maintained,” he told reporters yesterday.

Labella issued the statement following a letter from GSO head Ronaldo Malacora informing the Vice Mayor that they had already traced the equipment but found them to be unserviceable.

Labella, in a letter to Malacora after the city turned over a P59 million brand new aerial ladder truck to the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) last month, asked for the whereabouts of the aerial ladder and water tanker which he personally received from a donor in Iki Island, Japan in 2000.

Malacora said that the two equipment were returned by former Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CCDRRMO) executive director Simeon Romarate to engineer Alberto Bontuyan of the equipment repair and maintenance management office last March 2015.

The aerial ladder and water tanker had since been stored at the city’s repair shop at the South Road Properties (SRP).

“Since there are no available replacement parts to restore these units to operational condition, these are now considered as disposable equipment,” Malacora said in his letter to Labella.

Labella, however, refused to take Malacora’s statement at face value, saying that the GSO should still try to look for spare parts and fix the equipment.
Labella pointed out that the aerial ladder truck is a Hino while the water tanker is an Isuzu.

Both brands have shops in Cebu, Labella noted.

Labella plans to write a letter to the BFP asking them to explain why the equipment were not properly maintained.

“It is saddening to note that while we’re saving money, we have here equipment that were given for free but were not maintained. Anugon kaayo. Nagsakit akong dughan ani (It’s such a waste. My heart is aching),” lamented Labella.
“I hope it doesn’t happen to all the other vehicles we have,” he added.