Finding new paths

It’s hardly charting a new course to unknown parts of the world, but I’ve been exploring new routes to get from home to office and vice versa since all my old familiar paths–those tried and tested short cuts–are in various stages of "unearthing" and dis-repair. Tis the season for road repaving, and the heavy equipment are out tearing up the roads metro-wide. Some of the work is being done on sections of road that appear to be in good shape, with no sign of rut or pothole or even crack, but I guess–I hope?–the experts at Public Works have some sound structural reason for digging up the roads.

In my neck of the woods some of the diggings are the work of Manila Water, part of their massive P20 billion pipe replacement initiative to get rid of old, leaky pipes and cut down on systems losses. I called up Manila Water to find out how long this will go on, and it’s a five-year project not just to replace old pipes (775 kilometers of them) but to lay new ones as well (about 300 kilometers eastward towards San Mateo and Montalban). In the name of efficient use of water resources and improved service I guess we’ll have to grin and bear it for the next few years.

I must compliment Manila Water for being organized and as considerate as possible in this inconvenient situation, fencing up the diggings and stationing men to direct traffic in areas where the road is narrow and only one lane is passable. I hope though I will be able to compliment them too for fixing up the diggings when they’re done laying the pipes. In one particular stretch of road that I pass on my way home, the ruts run the entire width of the road and come every ten meters or so. It’s been weeks since the diggings were completed, but the ruts haven’t been fixed. In fact there are now a couple of new unmarked diggings blocking one lane of the narrow two-lane road, and when all this will get fixed up is a question that does not seem to have an answer.

I was told that the standard practice is for the company to pay some kind of bond to the local government, which will undertake the restoration work, but since it is Manila Water irate motorists like me (that’s why I called them) curse when the ruts and rubble are left on the roads, they are trying to get the LGUs to cede this potentially lucrative task to them–just so the roads are fixed up properly and quickly and they don’t get any more calls from screaming consumers.