By Hilda Austria/PNA
LINGAYEN, Pangasinan — Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) stations in Pangasinan have completed the inspection of schools in the province that will be used as billeting areas of participants in the National Schools Press Conference (NSPC), a competition for campus journalists.
BFP-Pangasinan director Supt. Eddie Jucutan said 18 high schools have been inspected by fire stations.
“It is in our policy that before the participants occupy the schools as billeting areas, we need to check them first,” Jucutan said in an interview Tuesday.
Nine schools are in Labrador town, three in Lingayen, four in Bugallon, and one each in Binmaley and Sual. The school in Sual is a reserved area in case there is a need for one more billeting area.
“On the safety of the building, based on the after-inspection reports submitted to me, it is okay to occupy these buildings since the billeting areas chosen are mostly new buildings,” Jucutan said.
He, however, acknowledged that they discovered some violations during the inspection, such as the lack of emergency lighting, directional exit, and some dangling electrical wiring.
“These are minor violations but should be corrected right away because we consider that the participants who will be using the area are not from this province. So in case of emergency, they would not know where to go,” he added.
Jucutan further said that since these are minor violations, the schools can immediately act on them so as not to affect the billeting areas as a whole.
“We have issued a notice to comply to the schools with violations since we finished the inspection last week,” he said.
Some 5,000 to 7,000 students and their teachers from across the country will participate in the NSPC slated to be held on January 27 to February 1.
