Council seeks creation of lighting plan for Burnham Park

May 12, 2018 Metro BLISTT

The Baguio City Council is requesting Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) and the city engineering office to jointly prepare the lighting plan of Burnham Park.
The proposed resolution, introduced by Councilors Benny O. Bomogao and Michael L. Lawana, reiterated the request of the city to install light emitting diode (LED) following the letter from Beneco offering to provide over a hundred poles and 70 high pressure sodium bulbs (hps) in the city’s premiere park.
The electric cooperative offered to install the poles and the bulbs, with estimated cost of P3.9 million, for free, however, the city would have to shoulder the estimated P30,000 monthly billing.
Bomogao said there is a need to study the lighting plan as “there might be redundancy on the poles that is existing now” explaining that some poles installed by the Department of Energy do not maximize the lighting of the park.
He is requesting Beneco to put up higher poles and, if needed, to decommission the redundant poles installed by DOE.
According to Engr. Edgar Victorio R. Olpindo, acting city engineer, there is enough fund if the proposed resolution will be enforced this coming June. He said there will be savings but they need to estimate first from the allotted budget if they will decommission some of the poles which may no longer be necessary and put the poles that will be installed by Beneco.
“Because the city government allotted P1.8 million for 2018 on the bill for Burnham Park and for the last four months, the city already paid P 495,000 or an average of P 123,000 per month and if we are going to add P30,000 per month starting in the next month, the budget of P1.8M will be enough to pay until December,” Olpindo said.
However, he reiterated that the lights to be installed must be LED, “I understand Beneco is offering hps but our recommendation is installation of LED lights, you see the Burnham Park is a park so I think we need light that are aesthetic.” CHERRY MAY D. PUMIHIC, UC Intern / ABN