HAPPY WEEKEND

Ebdane lambasts Mt Prov contractors
Gina Dizon

Contractors of State of the Nation Address (SONA) road projects in Mountain Province along the Halsema Highway particularly along Bauko-Bontoc Road are now writhing in discomfiture.

Highways Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane in his recent visit to the controversial national highway has ordered contractors to “remove and replace defective projects at their own expense.”

Isn’t that relieving? This comes as a welcome development following a flurry of individual complaints and press releases before that which led to independent investigations from the Presidential Management Staff and Commission on Audit.

Despite earlier public pronouncements through radio from Mountain Province Rep. Victor Dominguez that there was nothing irregular about the projects, the order by the Highways Secretary says the opposite.

There is something definitely irregular about the implementation of the Halsema Road projects, thus the order. It also comes as a revealing surprise to me that the good congressman is acting like a spokesman for the contractors and DPWH.

From here, the solon’s defense and categorical statement that there was nothing irregular about the Halsema road projects was a revealing actuation that there was something wrong which the solon was trying to cover up.

I am curious to know what the solon wants to cover up. How involved was he in the road projects that he had to come up with categorical statements saying there was nothing irregular in the implementation of said projects.

Though the findings were not yet released for the press to gobble up and the public to know, Ebdane’s order was clear enough -- a finding that road projects along the Halsema Highway particularly that of the Bauko-Bontoc Road smells of rotten irregularities.

As to the extent of this irregularity, I wish my source will give me the findings asap so that I can share to you pronto what the level and the state of the irregularity is. For sure, when we talk about irregularity in infrastructure projects, one will expect inches or meters of corruption.

How much corruption had been going on along the Halsema road projects, you can only imagine to what extent this is when ripraps tear down at the slightest rains only to be replaced by another riprapping project and so on and so forth.

This recent order by Ebdane was clear enough -- a finding that corruption apparently had been going on unchecked along the Bauko-Bontoc road as implemented by contractors and DPWH, particularly that of the district office of Mountain Province. Do correct me if the provincial Dept. of Public Works and Highways genuinely checked and kept up to standards of what project plans were initially meant to be.

Corruption, it cannot be denied is a scourge towards effective local governance where people should receive the benefits which are supposed to be due them: health, education, livelihood opportunities, water, sanitation, roads, etc.

Where corruption breeds fueled by patronage politics, majority of the people are denied of these services, lead them to suffer miserably, while the corrupt including the public official and his/her respective bootlickers enjoy what is supposed to benefit the public.

For Mountain Province which has gotten stuck in the country’s Club 20 and a 5th class province for quite so long a time, it hints of inches and meters of corruption fueled by people’s apathy and could you say helplessness?

This responsive development from the government to have the controversial Bauko-Bontoc road projects “removed and replaced” is a wake up call that corruption is not here to stay in our one and only beloved province. Pretty soon we may soon hear somebody being charged of plunder.

The “awaaaan, ma-id maaramid mo “You can’t do anything” attitude of some officials could become a thing of the past if people help in monitoring projects and make the proper complaints before government agencies or the courts.