LEGAZPI CITY—The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is struggling to resolve old and ongoing road obstructions that have caused alarming road accidents in the Bicol region.
Two incidents involved the son of a DPWH official who was driving a car that killed two pedestrians in a district where his father is the district engineer.
The Philippine National Police reported close to 8,000 road accidents covering the period 2015-2016 for Albay alone. Last year 3,800 plus road accidents took place, Albay provincial police office Spokesman Senior Police Inspector Art Gomez said.
DPWH Assistant Regional Director Esmeraldo Sarmiento, however, said the region’s 16 engineering districts are doing its best to lessen the obstructions that create severe traffic congestions in many parts of Bicol aggravated by the simultaneous massive widening of roads and bridges. He appealed to motorists and the public for extra patience.
Sarmiento and regional director Danilo Versola are both new in Bicol. Versola is from Davao while Sarmiento is from Bulacan.
Rep. Fernando Gonzalez of the First District of Albay said the DPWH is doing road improvement with the concreting of the fourth lane and bridge widening. He said the widening to a 20-meter road right-of-way could not be done without removing first the rich and poor squatters that in many sections of the roads have encroached on the tiny lane reserved for pedestrians. DPWH officials claimed the existing four-lane road way is barely 12.4-meters by 3.1-meters.
Local executives said traffic congestion is taking a toll on motorists who use the road.
Bicol University students in Legazpi’s second district questioned why the DPWH could dig up 100-year-old culverts from the kilometers-long drainage project and merely line them up at the roadside infront of the University campus at the risk and discomfort of pedestrians.
Blogger James Bandol criticized the DPWH criteria in giving the “outstanding” award to Albay’s DPWH First District Engineering with its roads rocked by delayed and ongoing obstructions worsened by the simultaneous road and bridge widening, scouring road sections and potholes. He cited the case of a motorist driving his ailing senior-citizen mother to Legazpi from Tabaco. The car was stuck in a deep pothole and smashed the mother’s face to the car dash-board.
Cesar Sanorjo, chief construction section of the DPWH’s Albay first district engineering, confirmed in March his office has bagged the 2017 model award. He refused to elaborate. District engineers said the rating from the Bureau of Maintenance to be a “model” district was purely based on having a “zero pothole” road as the only criterion.
Early this year, parents and teachers at the Lidong Elementary School along the highway of Barangay Lidong in Santo Domingo town (first district) strongly protested to no avail the simultaneous concreting of both road sides and uprooting old trees lining the pedestrian lane.
Rev. Fr. Efren Borromeo, Parish Priest of the Divine Mercy Church at Barangay Lidong, attested to the danger pedestrians and young pupils face as they evade speeding vehicles on the accident-prone Padang-Lidong route.
Former Albay Vice Gov. James Calisin and Jovellar town mayor for 25 years Jose Arcangel, 74, claimed that road is a nuisance to prominently getting negative impact from motorists and commuters because aside from the massive road concreting and bridge widening, the road is also being used to solar dry palay, aggravated by “padyak” operated tricycles.
With close to 8,000 units of padyak in Tabaco City alone, the national road is used by padyaks 24/7, said Calisin, a resident of Tabaco.