Cebu’s 1st ocean park set for power testing

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu Ocean Park, a facility that will feature an oceanarium with stingrays and sea lions, among other marine animals, is asking Cebu City’s Office of the Building Official to endorse a test on the park’s mechanism.

OBO head Engr. Josefa Ylanan, who received a letter-request from the ocean park management last week, said the city’s electrical engineers will inspect the facility first before the office will issue an endorsement.

“Cebu Ocean Park is asking for power endorsement to VECO (Visayan Electric Company) as they want to test their mechanism already. Our inspector said this is the first time the city will have an ocean park, so we have to be careful with their mechanism there as it involves water and electricity,” she told The FREEMAN.

The park will house an oceanarium that with an acrylic enclosure allowing for a 360-degree view of the main lagoon, stingray encounters, sea lion and bird shows, as well as penguin, jellies and insect exhibits.

Ylanan said that the management is still collating permits and requirements to generate power to test the system in the park.

OBO already issued a building permit for the construction of the one-hectare Cebu Ocean Park at the South Road Properties. Construction began in February 2016 and is expected to be completed by next year.

Although the lot is owned by SM Supermalls, Cebu Sealife Inc. is leasing the property to put up the park. The same group brought Manila Ocean Park to the country.

Ylanan said the park still has to secure other permits, though, such as a certification that the building is structurally, mechanically, sanitarily, and electrically-sound and that everything is functional and safe.

Other permits include occupational permit for the establishment as it will be built more than six meters below ground level.

Cebu Ocean Park is envisioned to be first world-class marine theme park and premiere educational-entertainment facility in the Visayas and Mindanao region, housing marine creatures indigenous to the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

Cebu Ocean Park’s management already made an earlier clarification that the facility would not be housing dolphins. — with Via Rose Ivy Q. Sambitan and Moira Beatrice A. Zamora, NSU and USC Interns, JMD