The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Weng C. Ocfemia
With the pronouncement of the government that the next six years of the Duterte administration will be the “golden age for the Philippine construction,” the more we have to embrace technology to accelerate development, said Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers (PICE) President Ernesto de Castro.
De Castro who is also the president and CEO of ESCA Incorporated met with delegates from 13 civil engineering councils forming part of the Asian Civil Engineering Council who gathered in Hawaii last week for the Civil Engineering Conference in the Asian Region (CECAR 7) hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
This year’s theme of “Building sustainable infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region: Meeting the challenges of sustainable infrastructure in Asia through knowledge sharing and experience” is very timely as the Philippines embark on a massive infrastructure program in the next six years, de Castro said.
The events in the Philippines “would be of profound interest not only to the Filipino civil engineers but to the rest of the civil engineering community in the region” because transparency, quality and technology will play vital role in the implementation of this projects, de Castro said, adding therefore the need to transform our engineering education. Training and certification to include the most advance technologies currently available.
The PICE recently signed the Memorandum of Agreement with the Construction Industry Authority of the Philippines-Philippine Domestic Construction Board on their partnership for the Constructors Performance Evaluation System (CPES). CPES is mandated for all public sector infrastructure projects under the Government Procurement Reform Act.
Together with the Philippine technological and professional councils, de Castro is working on a proposal for a “Building Information Modeling (BIM) Roadmap in the Philippines” that would require the use of BIM in the planning and implementation and maintenance of the constructed projects in the Philippines, for both public and private.
BIM, which is now widely adopted and mandated in more advanced economies, is transforming how the built-environment sector is designing, building and managing.
While BIM is yet to become known in the Philippines, de Castro said, it will be a tool in “building resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation” and would also complement President Duterte’s infrastructure agenda.
“We will not stop at infrastructure,” de Castro said. While “Filipinos are already contributing to the global infrastructure with our overseas workers and professionals. We would like to continue our work by becoming a brand. Our dream is to brand the Filipino Civil Engineers as a global brand – a professional recognized and respected anywhere and everywhere.”
The PICE is the only accredited professional association of all civil engineers in the Philippines with over 78,000 registered members spread across 97 chapters nationwide and 10 overseas chapters. PICE also has about 65,000 student members in 187 student chapters nationwide while ESCA is a leading Philippine engineering company offering structural design, civil engineering, project and construction management, and building information modeling. ESCA is also an engineering services outsourcing provider to global AEC companies.