Dangerous. The damaged concrete utility pole.
MABALACAT CITY – A damaged concrete utility pole that posed danger to residents, motorists, and passersby for more than a week, is finally being replaced by PLDT on Sunday.
Several concerned citizens have called for an immediate action via social media from the Magalang Pampanga Concern Citizens Facebook group on the damaged along Angeles-Magalang Road in Barangay San Francisco since Feb. 17.
“Concerned citizen” Shei Cabrera said several residents had tried to report the utility pole to the barangay, municipal disaster risk reduction management office, PELCO 1 (Pampanga Electric Cooperative 1), including telecommunication companies Converge, Smart, and Globe but failed to get any attention.
In a phone interview on Feb. 25, PELCO 1 area engineer Jerrymie Galvan said the utility post doesn’t belong to PELCO so they could not move any cable wires.
“Itang poste karin telecom ya, ali ku siguradu nung Innove ya or Globe pero ali ya pu PELCO. Ala kaming maka-attach a linya karin anya ali mi ya pwedeng taginan (The post there is from a telecom company. I am not sure if it’s Innove or Globe but it is not PELCO’s. We don’t have any wires attached to it so we cannot move it),” said Galvan.
PLDT and Smart corporate communications FVP and group head Cathy Yang, confirmed on Sunday that the utility pole belongs to PLDT. She said they have already coordinated with PELCO 1 on the removal of live electrical wires.
“We confirm that one of our concrete utility poles along Magalang-Angeles Road sustained damage. We have since coordinated the removal of the live electrical wires, which PELCO 1 completed yesterday. We are due to remove the broken pole and replace it with a new one today, Feb. 27,” Yang stated.
Yang encouraged their customers to report these incidents to their official social media page on Facebook, PLDT Home, to ensure immediate action.
Based on the Magalang Police Station San Nicolas 2 database, there were no reports of the incident as to what caused the damage of the said utility pole.
