Wanted: A DPWH that prioritizes road safety

I just came back from a four-day road trip from Dipolog City to Zamboanga City and back to Dipolog City, then crossed a ferry for a four-hour boat ride to Dumaguete City, staying overnight in the vacation home of fellow Road Brother Mr. and Mrs. John Yu in Bato, Santander before riding the 140 kilometers back to Cebu City. All told, the odometer on my BMW read 430 miles or 692 kilometers of fun riding the countryside of the Philippines.

Our Road Brothers were asked to ride to Davao City over the weekend to celebrate the victory of President-elect Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte, but we opted to ride to Zamboanga City because the last time we did that was six years ago during the birthday of our host, Mrs. Pilar Tan which was also the fiesta of Zamboanga City and the roads from Dipolog City, passing by Manokan, Sindangan and Ipil were well paved.

But this time around thanks to the “reblocking” scheme hatched by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) under the P-Noy regime, those good roads are being fixed even if they are not broken. This has been happening to us also in Cebu (take a good look at the Banawa Road) and it is also happening to many roads in Mindanao.

Three years ago, we went to the farm of our good friend in Sindangan. The roads were very well-paved and smooth; you’d be tempted to ride your motorcycle at high speed. Well for this trip, thanks to the stupidity of the system done by the DPWH, their “reblocking” scheme has left many unfinished roads where the old road meets so many newly cemented “new” roads. These are very short five-meter gravel roads that are elevated. So when you are running at 80-kph with a very glaring sun… you’d either jump your motorcycle or worse…fly into the road pavement because there are no warning signs that tell you to slow down.

This is exactly what happened to me on the way from the town of Ipil to Sindangan, where I hit an elevated unfinished part of the road, which I failed to discern because it was newly cemented, and the sun was glaring. It jolted my motorcycle violently. I knew I must have dropped something. I stopped and circled around to search for something I dropped and went on to check my bike, but it was only when I arrived in Sindangan to rejoin my group that I realized that the headlight of my motorcycle fell off from the force of that bump. I considered that a lesson learned.

As we went on to Dipolog, I once again hit a similar bump and while I was no longer riding fast, this time I lost my right saddlebag and lost my clothes and camera. Incidentally along the way, I noticed two huge trucks lying on their side near an unfinished road. What does that tell you? That the truck driver too could not see this unfinished section of the road and ended up in an accident. Mind you, this is due to a road construction that doesn’t have safety or warning signs like “Slow Down.” How many accidents in this country have happened due to lack of safety or warning signs?

Whenever my friends (of the Yellow kind) tell me that the best DPWH Secretary is Babes Singson, I always shoot them down right away for this cult type of worship for someone who could not impose strict road safety signs for all DPWH road constructions. How many motorists have died or badly maimed due to such accident, which were preventable if only the DPWH imposed strict rules on their contractors to put those safety signs?

Next month, the DPWH will have a new Cabinet Secretary under Sec. Mark Villar and I hope that Sec. Villar prioritize would priority the safety on their infrastructure projects where contractors should be fined and held responsible for not installing large and visible warning signs for motorists to slow down on time. Just to let you know, President Elect Duterte is like my Road Brothers (he inducted our club last April 29th in Cebu City) and therefore he is the first President of the Philippine who is a bona-fide motorcycle rider being a member of the On Any Sunday Rider’s Club of Davao City.

Still on DPWH issues. Did you know that in Region 7 there is what is known as the “DPWH Mafia”? They are a band of unscrupulous contractors who vie for contracts with the DPWH in a round robin type of bidding where winners are pre-chosen because the losers are eventually “given” other projects for as long as these contractors remain in the DPWH’s favored contractors list. This is something that I would like incoming DPWH Secretary Mark Villar under the Duterte Presidency to seriously look into.

For me… change means prioritizing safety where contractors should not be allowed to win and initiate infrastructure projects without a safety program that should have certain standards in place. People do not realize that President Elect Duterte is the first Filipino President who is known as a “Big Biker”. Yes if there is anything that Mayor Duterte shares with me… we have the same Yamaha V-Star 1100 motorcycle… and just pray that he doesn’t ride his bike from Sindangan to Dipolog and destroy his motorcycle!

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