Stopping DPWH, right and wrong

The Department of Public Works and Highways is being asked to stop immediately two of several simultaneously ongoing projects ostensibly involving the "repair and rehabilitation" of national roads in Cebu City.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is asking DPWH to stop the project in Banawa near the corner of M. Velez and V. Rama because, as he correctly pointed out, it involves the destruction of a stretch of concrete road in perfect condition, only to be replaced with another stretch of concrete pavement.

Actually, Rama should not stop there. As everyone with a clear sense of right or wrong, the DPWH is causing the destruction of many other national roads that are in perfectly good condition just so it can have them replaced with new ones.

It is ironic that while government is cracking down on tax cheats to collect more money and senators are being punished for stealing that money, here comes the DPWH throwing what is left of that money away on repairs even if there is no need for any.

If the Office of the Ombudsman is truly in on the fight against corruption, then it should not wait for complaints to be filed. On its own it should look into these DPWH projects immediately because it is very clear that these are being undertaken to the great disadvantage of the government.

Given the perfectly good condition of the roads being torn up, supposedly for repairs, it would not come as a surprise if these projects were undertaken for no other reason than to make certain officials whistle happily on their way to the bank.

On a somewhat related matter, as it still involves the same road repair projects, but this time for an entirely different reason, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is asking the DPWH to stop its repair work on Serging Osmeña Boulevard.

As it turned out, not only did the project involve the tearing up of a road that was in perfectly good condition, it also involved the destruction of the center island that had nothing to do with the road repairs. As a result, the fire trees that beautified the island vanished, only to be found later chopped into firewood.

This naturally got the goat of the DENR, which promptly "ordered" the DPWH to stop the project. Whether the DPWH will heed the cease and desist order of the DENR remains to be seen. What is clear to see, however, is that the trees would not have met their sorry fate if the DENR itself had been vigilant.

You see, long before the road repair project on Serging Osmeña Boulevard started, it was already a hot topic in the news. It became a hot topic because several businesses along this road complained about the lack of advance notice regarding the impending road closure.

The owners of these businesses sought an audience with Mayor Rama and succeeded in securing a few days postponement, allowing them to put in place alternative entrances and exits to and from their businesses. While all this was going on, the DENR could not have missed it by any stretch of the imagination.

Surprisingly, however, while the controversy over the Serging Osmeña Boulevard road repair project was a hot topic in the news, it appears that it never occurred to the DENR that there were trees on the center island of the road in question that could be endangered.

And while it may be true that if you have business with the DENR you go to the DENR instead of the DENR going to you, still it would have been no skin off anyone's back at DENR to call up his friendly counterpart at the DPWH to offer a little friendly reminder about the trees.

In Taipei, each single tree in the city is registered and catalogued and has a badge strung around it to indicate its name, specie, etc. We are, of course, not Taipei. But surely somebody at the DENR must have passed through Serging Osmeña Boulevard at least once to know there are trees on the center island there.

Just because the DPWH may not have gone to the DENR to coordinate with regard the fate of the trees, that still does not give the DENR the right and the excuse to wait forever. Unless it didn't know the trees existed, in which case it is very remiss, it could have initiated the contact with DPWH so it can do its job.

‘It is ironic that while government is cracking down on tax cheats to collect more money and senators are being punished for stealing that money, here comes the DPWH throwing what is left of that money away on repairs even if there is no need for any.’