Pope Francis School Building Construction: Uncovering Its Bottlenecks and Gains
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| Proposed architectural design of Pope Francis School Building Project |
Unlike most traditional contractor-led construction
practice, the Pope Francis School Building Project puts premium on integrated
and people-driven approach to construction management. Here, partner
communities and other relevant stakeholders are assuming a more active role in
various aspects of project implementation.
FRANCESCO did adequate consultations with appropriate
agencies and ensured that generally accepted standards for school building
construction are complied. Collaboration with the Department of Education
(DepEd) was deemed necessary as it has the absolute mandate in overseeing the
implementation of school recovery and rehabilitation programs in areas hit by
typhoon Yolanda. As proof of DepEd’s commitment to Pope Francis Village, it has
detailed an engineer who conducts periodic monitoring and visits to the project
site.
While in principle, typical design and construction drawings
from DepEd should be followed, this was not the case for the project though. After some prudent assessment made by the E.B.
Testing Center, Inc., FRANCESCO technical team calibrated the structural analysis
of the school building based on the soil bearing capacity of the site. This
deliberate adjustment was also done to reduce risks of earthquakes or possible
soil movements.
In mid-October 2015, accreditation on Occupational Health
and Safety in Construction was secured from the Department of Labor and Employment
(DOLE) upon roll-out of the organization’s Construction Safety and Health
Program. Specific components of this
program include deployment of a site/safety engineer and project nurse; conduct
of on-site safety and health promotion and continuing information
dissemination; accident and incident investigation and reporting; protection of
the general public within the vicinity of the construction site; environmental
control; guarding of hazardous machinery;
personal protective equipment (i.e.gloves, safety boots and hard hats)
for workers; continuous orientation on general materials handling and storage
procedures; provision for transportation facilities for workers in case of
emergency; conduct of regular toolbox meeting with workers; provisions for
first aid and health care medicines, equipment and facilities as well as first
aid administration involving the trained community members.
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| A first aid team composed of trained community members are reporting on a rotation basis to help ensure health protection and safety of workers at the construction site. |
The partnership with Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority (TESDA) was an important breakthrough achieved during the
pre-construction phase. The engagement
with TESDA sprung-up mainly from the need to equip community workers with basic
skills required in construction. Dealing with a labor force that don’t have
prior, if not limited construction experience was absolutely challenging both
for the technical team and the entire implementing organization. The workers’ profile would show that majority
of them were formerly pedicab drivers with very unstable income. The rest are
either unemployed individuals or out of school youth. Set against these
premises, the social and technical teams facilitated the screening process and
short-listed one hundred twenty-five (125) workers from Pope Francis Village. The
workers were clustered according to specific training courses namely masonry,
carpentry, electrical installation and maintenance (EIM), plumbing, and shield,
metal arc and welding (SMAW). Under the technical supervision of TESDA, they
had their one-month on the job training on construction at St. Therese
Educational Foundation and Technical Institute (STEFTI). At STEFTI, they were given proper training on
tools familiarization and measurements which are fundamental inputs in
construction work.
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| Twenty-five workers undertaking the training course on electrical installation and maintenance under TESDA. |
Overcoming Shortfalls
Since the project commenced in November 12, 2015, some
setbacks have been experienced attendant to the construction of Pope Francis
Building. The allotted space for the
project was only good enough for the structure and thereby limits the workers’ mobility
during the clearing and excavation stages.
The project teams had to look for feasible areas to situate the carpentry
and steel fabrication facilities, power tools and warehouse to stockpile the
purchased materials. Due to the site’s steep location, intensive labor was
required for excavation work to meet the required depth of two meters. The lack
of heavy equipment also prompted workers to do manual excavation and hauling of
soil that caused a major delay during the foundation works.
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| Manual excavation is done by workers due to lack of heavy equipment. |
Three consecutive typhoons also hit Tacloban when the
construction was on its most critical stage. “After intense and continuous
rainfall, we had to exhaust storm water from excavated holes using water pumps.
Sometimes water seepage easily erodes the soil making it more challenging for
the workers to install the wall footing”, attested Ibet Caceres, one of the
construction team members. Intermittent
rain followed by extremely hot weather is also the underlying reason for
frequent illness and subsequent absences of workers.
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| Gasoline-fueled water pumps are used to exhaust storm water from burrowed holes to make way for the installation of wall footings and columns. |
Apparently, the one month on-the-job-training of workers with TESDA is insufficient to hone their construction skills. With this steep learning curve, it is the school building project that usually bears the brunt of unexecuted targets and to some extent, implementation inertia resulting from the lack of highly skilled workers.
“In conventional construction, project engineers usually relay
instructions to the foreman and the latter will execute and coordinate these to
the entire construction team. In Pope Francis School Building Project, nobody
assumes the role of a foreman. Even the designated lead man in the construction site has
yet to improve his skills on structural plan reading”, shares Engr. Haide
Bacus, the detailed project engineer. Furthermore, workers appeared to be less
motivated during the site preparations and earthworks but later became more
engaged when they saw the progress on masonry, steel and carpentry works. Engr.
Bacus explained that this is a valid observation considering that these scope
of works are in line with the skills training given to the workers.
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| Project engineers usually post simplified instructions regarding the required sizes and quantity of steel bars needed for the columns to serve as guide for workers. |
From May as the target completion date of the Pope Francis
Building, it is likely that this will be moved to July considering the
afore-cited challenges. The project is indeed noble and the tasks involved were
herculean, but the community partners and the implementing teams also
stepped-up to the challenge. More than the building itself, it is actually the
gains and learnings from the construction process that significantly come into fruition.
Here below are some of these:
Unlocking the Spirit of Volunteerism
Motivated by a strong desire to build a resilient school
building for their children, community members of Pope Francis Village have
done their counterpart as well to reduce the labor cost and expedite the
construction process. Most of them render volunteer work by way of helping in
site clearing, excavation and hauling of materials. Some of the lighter tasks like
manual soil compaction, cutting of tie wires and sand bagging are fully hashed
from construction workers and are done instead by community volunteers.
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| Due to limited space to stockpile aggregates for construction, these are delivered in the open space across the school . Hauling of these is usually done by community volunteers. |
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A training ground for community workers
With almost four months of project involvement, the workers have now developed basic skills and techniques
in construction. Because of their varying training orientation and
specialization, they can be contracted as an organized community builders in the future, not only limited to
Pope Francis Village. Indeed, the school building project has really been
an effective training ground for community workers that honed their workmanship in preparation for the PFV housing construction.
Eliminating the gender divide in construction work
Women proved that they too can do the tasks mostly performed
by men in a typical construction. There are six women who are now working for
Pope Francis School Building Project. It
is noteworthy to highlight that these women workers who were once plain
housewives are now taking-on more challenging roles in the project site, with
some emerging as skilled masons and carpenters.
Enhanced the Labor Management Skills of the Construction Management
Team
The presence of a construction management team comprised of
selected members of Pope Francis Village is instrumental for ensuring the
quality of work and timely completion of the project. The team closely work
with the technical team on site. Not only the team members have developed their
labor management skills but they too have advanced their technical skills on
forecasting materials to be procured taking into consideration the program of
works and weather patterns as well as determining appropriate specifications,
quantity and sizes of materials to be used for construction.
Consistent mentoring support of structural engineer to junior
counterparts and community workers
One of the facilitating factors for the effective
implementation of the school building project is the presence of a structural
engineer who is open-minded and is flexible enough to provide mentoring support
to workers and the entire technical team. Albeit working on a consultancy basis,
the structural engineer has been closely supervising the construction
activities to ensure the structural integrity of the project and render service
even beyond his expected deliverables. Even junior site engineers draw
inspiration from his professionalism and technical guidance.
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| Engr. Joel Paragatos giving instructions to steel workers and construction team leader for the fabrication of stirrups. |
"I admit that I’m really impatient and stressed-out
especially when we have deadlines to beat and when issues crop-up in the site.
I was once struck by what Engr. Joel Paragatos, our structural engineer told
me- Waray ginpanganak didi ha kalibutan
nga maaram daan (Nobody was born who
already knows everything). Perhaps, he was right, it takes a lot of
patience to deal with workers who start from zero experience in construction
and are gradually learning from this community-driven construction”, affirmed
Engr. Haide Bacus.
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