DPWH’s incompetence and lack of urgency

Last Friday, Metro Cebu experienced a Manila-style traffic congestion that started at 5:30 p.m. and literally dispersed around 10 p.m. Sure everyone dismissed this as the expected Friday rush hour, plus with the Christmas season practically here already, yes traffic will only get worse. I have always warned our fellow Cebuanos, especially our Cebuano political leaders that if we do not make our move or noise… Metro Cebu will have a Manila-like traffic congestion and we got a taste of it last Friday.

But I’m not one who easily dismisses these things as part of our forthcoming Christmas season or even that Friday being a payday. After all, my many years as chairman of Cebu City Traffic Operations & Management (CITOM) from 2000 to 2005, which doesn’t include my years as director of this traffic group (I was an unpaid volunteer to help my beloved Cebu City) has taught me that Cebu City has the huge advantage over Metro Manila for the simple reason that traffic gets dispersed right away because the villages or subdivisions within Metro Cebu are less than five kilometers away from the center of the city.

So last Sunday, with traffic very light, I went around to check where the choke points are… and lo and behold I saw it… in Mandaue City where somehow the Department of Public Works & Highways (DPWH) has a road widening project in AS Fortuna Ave. and H. Cortes St.

The road widening of AS Fortuna Ave. has been going on nearly for a year already with no end in sight. If you go around, you will see diggings along the whole stretch and on both sides of the road with no one working on it. Yes, we’ve already tasked Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes to demand that the contractors work faster to have this road done sooner…not later. Unfortunately our calls fell on deaf ears! Someone ought to crack the whip!

During my stint as Regional Development Council (RDC-7) infrastructure utilities chairman (IUC) especially when we had major road widening projects in Metro Cebu (yes, AS Fortuna Ave. was one of the roads we widened) called Metro Cebu Development Program (MCDP) 1,2 and 3, we never allowed any of our contractors to dig more than 200 meters. They had to dig and finish that 200 meters before they are allowed to dig or destroy the road sides so that the public would not be inconvenienced.

But then the convenience and safety of the motorist and riding public is never given any importance by the DPWH… we might as well rename DPWH as Department of Public Works & Hassle. While AS Fortuna is a major thoroughfare of Mandaue City, at the same time they are also working on H. Cortes St. which runs parallel to the Banilad-Talamban Road, which we have dubbed the “EDSA of Cebu.”

I passed by H. Cortes last Sunday and yes nearly 80% of the road works remain uncompleted. Worse, since it was a Sunday, no one was working on our roads. This is definitely a “No-No” if we were working on such vital roadways. Alas, the Philippines is still a third world country, hence DPWH engineers have a third world mentality. In most Western nations work on their vital roads go 24/7 night and day, including Sundays. But not here!

Clearly DPWH doesn’t really care and they are taking their sweet time in allowing their contractors to finish their job. In fact, thanks to DPWH’s transparency program, no one knows who the contractor of these road projects is. They could very well be “special or favored friends” of DPWH, many of them come from Metro Manila. I’ve asked many people who is the contractor of these projects and no one can tell me who.

At this point, we would like to make an appeal to DPWH Sec. Rogelio Singson to visit Cebu and take a good look at these two roads so that he can be appraised that Cebuanos today are gravely inconvenienced because their contractor doesn’t care for us in Cebu. Mind you, we totally understand that old saying that before things get better, they have to get worse. But in this case… we are in our worse and it’s because DPWH officials just don’t care. How much more their contractors?

President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III always boasts about his reforms, and frankly speaking we don’t see where these reforms are. During the time of then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, we already demanded reforms from the DPWH…but even back then they didn’t care to listen. This is the mentality or should I say the culture of DPWH then and now…that they don’t listen to complaints, that they are very secretive when it comes to their favorite contractors. Above all, the safety and convenience of motorists are never taken into consideration when they close major roads for repairs.

Today, Cebuanos are up in arms against the DPWH and they are blaming P-Noy for the incompetence. Let’s see what Sec. Singson can do for Cebu.

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