• CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
An ordinance establishing underground cabling in Bacolod City was signed by Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez on Wednesday.
Authored by Councilor Claudio Puentevella, the ordinance said the city aims to remove dangling and unbundled overhead wires “spaghetti wires,” which can be toppled down by trees during severe weather conditions, as well as reduce the number of deaths caused by accidental contact with electrical wires, fire incidents caused by electrical overloading, and theft and pilferage on different utility lines.
In order to promote a resilient Bacolod City, all overhead electrical, telecommunications, cable television, and other wires from posts will need to be transferred to the underground connectivity plan of the city, it said.
The City of Bacolod has established a policy by declaring spaghetti wires as a nuisance per se, under Executive Order No. 3, series of 2022 and mandates its removal, the ordinance said.
As part of the city’s power to regulate these activities within its jurisdiction to promote public welfare and good, there is a need for the city to come-up with an underground cabling and connectivity plan for it to address the proliferation of spaghetti wires in Bacolod City, it said.
The ordinance provides that the cost for placing underground the electrical and telecommunications wires and cables, including the restoration of the excavated streets/sidewalks, will be jointly shared among the electric companies, public telecommunication carriers, and other concerned public utility firms, as determined and stated in a unified Underground Connectivity Plan.
The budgetary requirements for the implementation of the approved City’s Underground Connectivity Plan (UCP) including any phase, will be sourced from the City General Fund. The City of Bacolod will allocate an initial amount of P100,000,000.*
