Duterte tells Chuzon supermarket chain to stop operations

President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday ordered the suspension of operations of all branches of Chuzon Supermarket after its grocery store in Porac, Pampanga collapsed following a magnitude-6.1 earthquake struck Luzon on Monday.

Duterte made the decision after visiting the Chuzon store that collapsed on Monday, killing at least four people.

“Well, in all probability the one who constructed the supermart here could also be the one who constructed the others. I’d like to presume that. Although I stand corrected,” the President said at the briefing on the quake’s effects at the provincial capitol in San Fernando City, Pampanga.

“It would be good at this time to just give them the advice to stop, cease and desist doing business until such time that the clearance [is] given by government,” he added.

He said the review should inquire into what kind of materials were used for the construction of the grocery stores and “whether they were made or applied in right sizes or was there any shortcuts made.”

“The intensive damage...was appalling in the sense that there was a collapse and the other buildings around made also of cement and structural materials, the steel eh wala namang bumagsak. It’s the only one,” he said.

“But whether it was a deliberate move to just do away with safety standards or was there a compliance with the requirements of the law that would be the work of the investigators.”

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said in the briefing that he would issue a memorandum circular to the local government units that have Chuzon store in their jurisdiction to temporarily suspend the business permit “until we have pre-assessed the structural integrity of these supermarkets.”

Apart from Porac, Chuzon has branches in Sto. Tomas, Apalit, Guagua, and Floridablanca towns in Pampanga as well as in Gerona, Tarlac and Mariveles, Bataan.

Public Works Secretary Mark Villar offered an initial assessment on why the Porac supermarket collapsed.

“Judging by the way that it fell we see that there seems to be a problem with the basic foundation. But of course it’s still too early to come up with the exact [reason],” he said.

Pampanga was the worst hit by the tremor, which killed at least 16 people and damaged public infrastructure and private properties in the province.

The province’s second district—composed of the municipalities of Floridablanca, Guagua, Lubao, Porac, Santa Rita, Sasmuan—has been placed under a state of calamity to allow the provincial government to tap funds intended for rehabilitation and disaster response. — BAP, GMA News