Chamber to ask city to repair wiring facilities

(by Carlo P. Mallo, 22 June 2009, SunStar Davao) Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. will ask the City Government to rehabilitate the city's wiring facilities and recommend a more cost-efficient underground wiring system.

This came up during the launching of the first Innoport, a portable Innolab, in Davao City.

"Cities around the globe are already going underground, even old cities like Paris," Simeon Marfori, President of DCCCII, said. "If old cities in Europe can do it, then why can't we do it now while we are still young."

Even telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) preferred to have their cable lines underground.

"It is more cost efficient for us maintenance wise," Katrina Abellarde, SME Nation Vice President of PLDT, said. "Given the choice, we prefer to go underground."

Marfori said the government should act now, or even start to take such measures into consideration while there is still a lot of elbow room.

"If we should do it, we should do it now," Marfori said.

In Metro Manila, the benefits of having an underground wiring system were experienced by tenants and residents of Rockwell in Makati City.

After a storm ravaged the nation's capital, electric posts were toppled putting the entire National Capital Region into an abyss of darkness, except for Rockwell, whose underground wiring system was spared from the storm.

"If the government can spend P2.8 billion on so many things, and banks are willing, an underground wiring system is not impossible," Marfori said.

The DCCCII president said they will officially propose such measures to the City Government of Davao within the year, after the chamber's general assembly.