An abandoned project - a case for the ombudsman?

Is there such a thing as a half road? This question is very difficult to understand because while it may be structured grammatically correct, its context is quite uncommon. It, thus, behooves on me to give a picture of a “half road” before we can proceed to answer the question intelligently.

 Somewhere between barangays Mabini and Paril, this city, there was a road concreting effort being undertaken by the government. It was started sometime in the third quarter of 2010. For sure, it was pursued at the start of the administration of His Honor, Cebu City Michael L. Rama, such that I have to assume that he should get the credit.

 When the first signs of such a project were then seen, my neighbors in Paril were ecstatic. We had no idea what the construction really was but from the appearance of some workers and few heavy equipment, we concluded that finally our road got the attention of government and soon our travel would not anymore be excruciatingly slow and dangerous over stretches of unbelievable mud, sharp rocks or loose stones and deep ruts.

 I thought there is a law that requires that a billboard containing information about the project like its cost, source of fund, date of start and estimated completion etc. be posted somewhere near the project. If it still is in effect, it is clearly breached here for many unspecified reasons. Really, I noticed no such billboard anywhere near this concreting project. 

 Anyway, the work, even at the start, was very slow. If it was one reason why no billboard was set up, we did not complain. Personally though, I could not understand why the contractor assigned only a handful of men to a big undertaking and those few personnel took a long period of time just to prepare the foundation of the road for concreting and still longer time to pour cement. 

 The width of this road is one for the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It is just enough to accommodate two small vehicles, like a Multicab and my Beetle, meeting and passing each other from opposite directions. For that purpose, one vehicle had to slow down, almost to a halt, to avoid snagging each other’s side.

 Many months ago, the contractor worked on extending a span. Its practice being to concrete a half of the targeted length of the road in order not to paralyze traffic completely, the workers poured concrete about 50 meters of that half portion of the road. When the curing time of that stretch was reached, only one vehicle such as my Beetle could use it. In fact, to run over that concreted portion, we had to drive very slowly to make sure that we would not fall to the side. It was that small the width of the concreting. Actually, it was only half of the road that was cemented. To answer my question, I say, yes there is such a half road. The other half was (and still is) impossible to travel on.

 Today, the contractor’s men are nowhere to be found. They have stopped working. I was told two weeks ago, that the contractor was not anymore going to finish the project that’s why he pulled out his men and equipment. My oh my! Assuming that information to be true, the act of the contractor, in my vocabulary, is called abandonment. Yes, the contractor has abandoned the project. The physical evidence of abandonment is there. Res ipsa loquitor. If the mayor desires, he simply has to visit the site to see what I mean. The Office of the Ombudsman Visayas may also investigate this case.

It is unthinkable for the government to enter into any contract where the contractor is allowed to make only one half of a portion of the project. With an incomplete undertaking, is the contractor not under pain of any sanction like the government seizing the performance bond and imposing penalties that are written into the contract? He should not get the full payment and I hope here, in this project, the government has not yet released it. Or someone must indeed be held liable under the Anti Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.