PEZA suspends Davao City mall, SSI after fire

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has suspended the operations of the NCCC mall and American business process outsourcing (BPO) company SSI Philippines Inc. in Davao City in the aftermath of a fire that killed 37 call center employees.

“We have issued a suspension order to both the NCCC as the ecozone developer and SSI as a BPO registered locator,” PEZA director general Charito Plaza said yesterday.

Plaza clarified that the suspension order does not cover the branch of SSI at the Mactan Economic Processing Zone 2 in Cebu.

 She said PEZA has not issued a fire safety inspection certificate to SSI in Davao City since 2013 for not complying with its requirements.

“NCCC was constructed prior to registration with PEZA…They got their building and fire permits from the LGU (local government unit). Every year thereafter, the LGU has been the one that issued it,” Plaza said.

She said the NCCC and SSI would remain suspended until cleared by concerned authorities.

“The direction is to suspend all operations and subsequent expansion...outside Mactan,” Plaza said of SSI.

SSI in Davao has 494 employees. Its branch in Mactan has 1,278 employees.

Fire code in economic zones

Meanwhile, Plaza said the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and PEZA would sign a memorandum of agreement on the enforcement of the Fire Code in economic zones.

“We decided to give up the usual responsibilities of PEZA. Inspection will be done by BFP, but we will jointly work with them as far as providing...office space in our ecozones. We will also...help in monitoring compliance of our industries and...improve suppression capability by adding more firetrucks and firefighters,” she said.

Under the proposed agreement, Plaza said they would set a grace period in the inspection and issuance of permits to ensure that there will be no delay in operations.