EDITORIAL — Surprised by Christmas

In the Bicol region, the government is looking unprepared not only for tropical cyclones, monsoon-induced rainfall and cataclysmic flooding, but also for Christmas. Specifically, the holiday travel rush.

You’d think Christmas happened once in a blue moon, or Filipinos are strangers to the impact of bad roads and repair work on vehicular traffic. Yet authorities appeared to have been caught by surprise when a monstrous traffic jam developed amid the Christmas travel buildup on Dec. 18 along the Andaya Highway in Camarines Sur. Reports estimated the traffic jam in Ragay town to be 17 kilometers long. Motorists said it took them up to five hours to negotiate that stretch of the highway.

The Land Transportation Office attributed the traffic jam to ongoing repairs including reblocking of roads that were damaged by heavy rainfall, aggravated by undisciplined drivers who tried to counterflow. Near Daet, Camarines Sur, soil erosion has rendered a portion of the road completely impassable. In other sections, only one lane can be used. The LTO in Bicol said it had issued an alert about the road repairs, and had advised motorists to take alternative routes.

Highways in Bicol are traversed by vehicles not only on their way to various parts of the region, but even to the Visayas and Mindanao, connecting through roll-on, roll-off or RORO services. Images of the massive traffic jam showed numerous buses and trucks crawling along the highway.

It has been nearly two months since widespread flooding struck Bicol, particularly Camarines Norte, with the passage of Severe Tropical Storm Kristine. With the Christmas season approaching, repairs of public works infrastructure damaged by Kristine and monsoon-induced torrential rainfall should have been fast-tracked, at least along the heavily used highways in Bicol.

Considering the top funding priority given by the national leadership to the Department of Public Works and Highways, the agency can’t cite insufficiency of resources for failing to speed up the repairs.

Following the media reports on the massive traffic jams and complaints from harried motorists and logistics providers, the government announced measures for “immediate” implementation to ease the gridlocks, including “stop-and-go” schemes along one-lane road stretches.

The Philippine National Police deployed personnel to the affected areas for traffic management and set up help desks to assist motorists. Alternative routes are being worked out. The DPWH said it was fast-tracking the road repairs and employing temporary measures to support two-lane traffic flow. With a bit of foresight, these measures should have been carried out before the start of the annual holiday travel rush.