CEBU CITY — The Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) finally filed charges for reckless imprudence resulting to homicide against eight defendants two weeks after five construction workers were killed when the firewall of a mall they were working on collapsed.

CCPO Director Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador said they have sufficiently established a case against the eight employees of CYC Construction, the contracting firm of the Gaisano Capital Mall in Barangay Tisa. He said that the case is now in the hands of the Prosecutor’s Office.

Named defendant in the charges filed by the police are CYC owner Charlie Yu Chiu, project engineer Necito Caldosa and lead man Jesryl Villena. Five others, including the project manager, project architect, general foreman, lead steel man, and lead mason are also facing charges, but PO3  Geoffrey Gutual, the officer-in-charge of the case, said they are yet to get their names.

“The owners of the mall do not have any criminal liability, as they were not involved directly in the incident,” said Comendador.

Among the documents attached to the complaint is the report of the Office of the Building Official (OBO) which states that the parapet wall constructed was much higher than what was approved by the OBO and as stipulated in the building permit.

The OBO said the permit only allows a 1.00 meter parapet, but the actual construction reportedly measured approximately 2.30 meters high.

The agency also said “the contractor did not provide adequate protective measures like safety nets and scaffoldings and its workers have no hard hats and other protective gears.”

The OBO recommended that protective measures should be put in place by the contractor and hazardous structures like leaning columns and beams should immediately be removed to prevent further damage.

Recommended further by the OBO is for the firm to hire a structural engineer and a consultant from the Cebu city government to assess the cause of the collapse.

To recall, last April 7, five construction workers were pinned to death while six others sustained head and body injuries when part of the mall building they were working on collapsed at 1 a.m. in Barangay Tisa, this city.

The construction workers, all employed by the CYC Construction Company, were working on shift for 24 hours to beat the April 30 grand opening of the Gaisano Capital mall but the firewall on the right side of the building collapsed, dragging the concrete and metal beams and the electrical transformer to the ground.

Arnel Pacible, one of the six workers injured, said he noticed that the firewall was already leaning a little bit but ignored the danger saying they were ordered to work double time to finish the mall on schedule.

While working on the finishing touches of the wall, Pacible said the firewall on the right side suddenly collapsed, hitting his fellow workers who were working on the beams of the ceiling and on the ground floor.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) 7 has launched its own investigation to determine the liabilities of the building owner and the contractor after learning that the construction workers only earn P125 per day.