Bacolod Mayor Urged By Councilor To Probe Halandumon Tower
HALANDUMON TOWER – Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia was urged by city councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. to probe on Halandumon Tower.
According to SunStar, Gamboa said on Thursday that Leonardia should form an independent fact-finding committee in order to clear negative public perception and doubts on the construction of the ₱4.8 million tower in Gonzaga-Gatuslao streets, Barangay 12. The tower was built in commemoration of the 80th year of Bacolod in 2018.
“This is already a “halam-utan tower” or funny tower after it went viral on social media where several pictures of the cartoon characters were placed on the tower, and after three months, there was a problem on its lights and last week it was also hit by vehicle where it went viral again and the edited picture of Mayor Leonardia was placed on the damaged tower. The netizens made it for fun,”
The tower went controversial when several netizens on social media criticized the project when it was open on June 18.
Two of the panels of the tower were damaged after a black Ford Everest, driven by Inhwan Shin, aged 46, hit the tower, as well as the scaffolds surrounding it.
Project Engineer Loben Ceballos of City Engineer’s Office (CEO), explained that the damaged panels were made of lightweight concrete which is not sub-standard.
Ceballos added that the components of the lightweight concrete include silica fumes, super plasticizer, PP fibren, polyesterene beads, Portland cement, mixing sand, 8mm reinforcing bars and water.
“The chemicals present in silica fumes are the reason why the panels are lightweight. Solid panels are very heavy,”
As per the report, the contractor of the tower The Humming Bird Construction and Supply Corp. was given three months to finish the repair of the tower.
The councilor said that it’s only natural for the project engineer to defend the tower.
“He’s a project engineer (Ceballos) and definitely he will defend that. This is my challenge to our mayor that he has to come out clean because his name was already dragged on this issue after he issued a statement supporting the claim of the City Engineer’s Office that the tower was built on solid and strong foundation, but after it was hit by vehicle we saw a hallow wall and the materials were made of substandard light materials,”
Gamboa added that for Leonardia to come clean, he has to make an independent fact-finding committee or the tower will otherwise be a symbol of corruption.
Ceballos earlier said that the structure is made of steel materials, with its column cover made of light wall concrete. He added that the Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting is programmable weather proof.
Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran said that all the city government projects also passed through with the Commission on Audit (COA).
“So the final arbiter (if there’s an anomaly) is the COA. It’s uncalled for and irresponsible to call it “Halam-utan tower.” It’s irresponsible statement coming from an elected official. He (Gamboa) has no basis. He can pass a resolution so that it will be explained to him,”
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