Getting to know Gregorio Vigilar - From The Stands

A much-maligned department is the Public Works and Highways, and if the Secretary of Public Works, Gregorio R. Vigilar, were made of lesser stuff, he would have been long slammed out of his position or given up the ghost. But the fact that he has served Presidents Aquino and Ramos and continues to do so under Estrada indicates that he is an asset to the administration -- no matter the charges of his turf being the most corrupt and graft-ridden. The bad, or who cares, public impression of him may be due to the bad, or little if at all, press he has been getting, and/or lack of a public relations team to parry ill remarks about his administration.

A handful of us from media had lunch with him last week upon arrangement by a good friend of the secretary who has been pained by the public's misperception about him. In fact, all of us knew very little about him and his department's accomplishments, and have been guilty of believing what our colleagues have written about him hook, line and sinker. Let me share some of the things we learned at the lunch.

The department is charged with upgrading of the national arterial roads or "backbone system" to carry the main flow of people, goods and services between and among regions, provinces and principal urban centers, improvement of national secondary roads, and improvement of flood control system and basins. In carrying out these functions, the department has been severely criticized.

People, mediapersons included, have charged that 20-40 per cent of DPWH project funds are lost because of graft and corruption. This is "an unconscionable exaggeration," said the secretary. "Anybody who is familiar with construction work knows that, if as much as 20 percent of project funds are removed from the project, that project will not be finished in accordance with plans and specifications." Projects are bid out, and those that are foreign-funded are strictly monitored by the funding agencies.

Vigilar admitted that "irregularities" may be committed, but these do not reach 20 per cent. The department being a construction organization, it leaves the investigative work to prosecute crime to the resident ombudsman. "If there are only a few convictions, it is probably because there is sufficient evidence for only a few of these cases." The "irregularities," he said, are committed on account of "Filipino ingenuity."

DPWH projects have included the construction of 36,000 kilometers of roads built during the Ramos administration, and the 3,400 more under the Estrada administration. Built have been bridges, school buildings and flood control projects. Among the individual projects are the 74-km.-long Kabankalan-Neg. Occ.-Maaslum, Neg. Or. road costing P465 million; the 62-km.-long South Samar roads costing P1.4 billion; the second bridge connecting Mactan with the Island of Cebu, the 400-linear-meter long Anda Bridge, and the 57-km.-long megadike in Pasig-Potrero, Pampanga.

The Pasig-Potrero dike had been a source of great pain not so much for himself, the secretary said, but his wife, a medical doctor by training. The geologist from America, Kelvin Rodolfo, had from the very start of the lahar mitigation operations in 1991, opposed the construction of the dikes on the ground that nature (lahar flows) was too strong for human beings to resist; he also opposed the use of lahar for building the dikes; he proposed the relocation of people living in areas threatened by lahar flow. Media depicted Rodolfo as hero.

Vigilar was undaunted and built the 57-kilometer long megadike, which measured 10 meters wide, 10-meters high and with a base of 60 meters and used lahar, binding it with sol and compacting the whole length of the dike with a 10-cm. thick concrete armor. Even if there would be a crack in the dike, there would be no danger of its collapsing, he said. Since the project was built three years ago, the dike has not collapsed, as predicted by Rodolfo and the media. But no one has sung paeans to the DPWH for such a feat.

People must know that the department has responsibility over national highways and roads, and that government executives look after regional, municipal and local roads. As to the patchwork job evident on highways, including the South Luzon superhighway, Vigilar said that is so because the allocation for road repairs is only P75,000 per kilometer of road.

On the news reports quoting Vigilar as saying nuns and priests helped cause the flooding of streets by advising squatters not to leave their areas: Vigilar said almost a year of negotiations with the squatters take place before their dwellings are demolished, and here come men and women in robes and habits saying the squatters' rights are being violated.

Vigilar's term has been extended several times, but when he turns 72 this year, he is finally quitting. A highly-intelligent native of Iloilo, and a graduate of UP and West Point, he has remembered telling his wife, "You're okay, if you commit mistakes, you bury them, but we engineers are being buried by our mistakes."

Performing Artists International has teamed up with Saling Lahi to produce a two-night Valentine's special benefit. On Saturday, February 12, they are staging The Power of Three Loves, featuring the musical trio of singing diva Dulce, the multi-awarded international piano virtuoso Raul Sunico and the superstar saxophonist Tots Tolentino. They will be doing solos, duets and trios of Filipino love songs.

On Monday, the14th, the show, Love Heroes and Heroines, will again feature Raul Sunico and Tots Tolentino, as well as Chinggoy Alonso, Carla Guevara, Carla Martinez, and Rannie Raymundo, who will be singing cherished love songs. Both dinner-shows to be held at the Maynila of the Manila Hotel beginning 7:30 p.m. Beneficiaries of the proceeds will be the Mother Teresa Order and the Soroptimist Club's shelter for battered women.