CLARK FREEPORT – Amid her fears for “millions of lives and trillions worth of devastation,” former Sen. Nikki Coseteng has formally asked Pres. Duterte to look into a study claiming that hundreds if not thousands of skyscrapers in the country could readily collapse during a “high intensity earthquake” because of the pervasive use of poor quality steel since some 10 years ago.
In a letter to the President, Coseteng asked him “to address the serious and burning issue of quench-tempered, thermo-mechanically treated (QT-TMT) steel rebars manufactured by the biggest steel factories in the Philippines being used in high rise buildings.”
Coseteng warned that “under your administration’s admirable Build, Build, Build Program, the major, critical infrastructures using QT-TMT rebars are in danger of collapsing as well.”
She noted that some 10 years ago, local steel manufacturers replaced the more durable micro-alloy (MA) rebars with the inferior QT steel rebars without informing high rise building contractors and other developers in the country.
She cited to the President a study done by engineer Emilio Morales way back in 2010 decrying this, noting “legislation, tests and studies done abroad that have already shown that QTTMT rebars have been proven unsafe to use in high-rises particularly in countries such as ours known to be in Seismic Zone 4.”
Morales is a multi-awarded structural engineer and a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“In the event of a high intensity earthquake, such as the anticipated Big One, our high rise buildings that have used these QT rebars stand a very high risk of partial or complete collapse,” she warned.
In a press briefing here last Friday, Coseteng said she had brought this issue before some of the country’s top high rise contractors and developers who said they were never informed that durable MA rebars were replaced with inferior QT -TMT by local manufacturers.
“One top notch contractor admitted to me not knowing whether he had unknowingly used QT-TMT rebars in over a thousand buildings he had already constructed,” she said.
Coseteng lamented that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has not taken her seriously and a top official even accused her of merely boosting her political standing in the next elections.
DTI later cited an “on site” test purportedly indicating that QT-TMT rebars were durable enough for high rises, but Coseteng noted the tests should have been done in a reputed laboratory, not on construction side.
“My daughter lives on the 26th floor of a high rise so I take this seriously. Imagine the millions of lives that could be lost and the trillions of losses not only in the structures that could collapse, but also in clearing huge devastation,” she said.
“This is one crusade that I wish I could be wrong,” she stressed.
Coseteng noted, however, that Taiwan which is also located in the Seismic Zone 4 near the so-called Ring of Fire, the manufacture of QT-TMT has already been banned.
She cited “international and conclusive studies done in prestigious imstitutions abroad indicating that QT-TMT rebars are not to be welded, bended, threaded and galvanized and will fail almost immediately under cyclic loading tests.”
Coseteng said even the National Structural Code of the Philippines recognizes this.
“Mr. President, what are the DTI and the large steel manufacturers hiding? Why can’t they produce once and for all the tests that were done, as promised, to prove credence to their claim?” she said in her letter.
Coseteng then appealed to Duterte “to make the steel manufacturers answer the questions I have enclosed.”
She also asked the President to direct the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission to look into the case.
“I also am very much aware of your concern that several thousands of employees may be displaced in the event that the local and steel factories close. But the closure of these factories is not what we want but for the owners and stakeholders to take responsibility and accountability if these QT-TMT rebars in high rises fail,” she said.
Coseteng added: “I also understand the political ramifications and sensitivities concerned in unearthing the lies and deception. But you are a fair and just man, Mr. President. Surely, the economic and moral ramifications outweigh the political.”
