Senior Fire Officer 2 (SFO2) Wendell Villanueva, information officer of the Cebu City Police Office (CCFO), says firetrucks will have roving patrols passing by polling centers in Cebu City starting today until May 9. | Pegeen Maisie Sararaña
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Fire Office (CCFO) has assured that the polling centers in the city have adequate fire protection equipment.
Senior Fire Officer 2 (SFO2) Wendell Villanueva, information officer of the Cebu City Police Office (CCFO), said these as the CCFO inspected in the past few weeks the schools used as polling centers.
Villanueva said that the polling centers might not have many fire protection equipment such as fire extinguishers but these were adequate enough to “comply substantially” for the fire protection requirements of the polling centers.
“Di kaayo ingun ana ka lapad or kadaghan ang ilang fire protection equipment. However, ni comply sila substantially. Madala ra,” Villanueva said.
(Their protection equipment is not that many. However, they had substantially complied with the requirement. These are enough.)
He, however, assured the public that these schools were compliant and that their safety measures were in place when needed.
“Kay og ari ta mag inspect sa private sector, ang compliance bitaw dali ra kompara nato sa mga public establishments or government institutions kay dugay man gud ang pag procure,” Villanueva said.
(Because if we inspect the private sector, there is quick compliance as compared to the public establishments or government institutions because the procurement of the equipment will take time.)
“But ako e assure ang public nga kaning mga skwelahan compliant ni sila. Atoa man sad nang tanawon ilang nga source of power, mga kuryente,” he adeed.
(But I assure the public that these schools are compliant. We are also checking their source of power and the electricity.)
Aside from that, Villanueva said that they had also trained teachers and personnel of the polling centers about fire safety.
“We always expect for worst. Worst case scenario gyud sige. Naa nay nakaset nga plano og unsay mga buhaton,” he said.
(We always expect for the worst. It is always the worst case scenario [that we are preparing from]. We already have plans on what to do.)
Villanueva also said that firetrucks would also conduct roving patrols near polling centers starting today.
He said the firetrucks would pass by the polling centers every two hours on May 6 and May 7.
But he said on May 9, the firetrucks would pass by the schools every hour.
Villanueva said that they resorted to roving patrols of firetrucks as a way to cover all areas because they lacked the manpower to place personnel on all polling centers.
He also said that aside from the roving patrols of firetrucks, they would also have fire personnel on standby in some polling centers.
He said that 145 CCFO personnel would be deployed to various polling centers, who would be always on the ready to respond to any fire alarms there.
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