ABSTRACT

This action research aimed to evaluate the fire safety compliance on the construction of government-funded projects that are required to secure the necessary Fire Safety Evaluation Clearance (FSEC) of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) which is pre-requisite in the grant of building permit by the local government of Mawab, Davao de Oro.
Collaboration with implementors of the said projects such as Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the Office of the Building Official (OBO) and the private contractors were conducted through meetings, casual interviews and phone conversations. These were done in four steps of action research cycle namely constructing, planning action, taking action and evaluating action. It was discovered in the first cycle of research that the main reason for the non-compliance was the unawareness of collaborators on the mandatory compliance of securing FSEC and building permit believing that government buildings are exempted from the coverage of the fire code.

In order to gain the cooperation and ensure the FSEC compliance from collaborators, a fire code seminar on securing FSEC and Fire Safety Inspection Certificate (FSIC) was initiated by Mawab Fire Station. It was attended by construction engineers from DPWH, private contractors and other local government offices involved in licensing and permits. The intervention brought a positive development in resolving the underlying issue considering that contractors began to secure FSEC on new applicants of government building permits and BFP is now a regular part of the pre-construction conference called by DPWH before commencing a government construction project. However during the second cycle of this study through evaluation by insider action researchers, there are still two remaining government projects being identified in the first cycle that still failed to secure the necessary FSEC up to this period.