LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

Hostaging Abatan-Cervantes highway/Mines officers elected
MARCH L. FIANZA

CERVANTES, Ilocos Sur -- While authorities scampered last week to free Ces Drilon and her ABS-CBN news team from their hostage takers, I joined a trip to Barangay Comillas in Cervantes to see for myself the other face of a “hostage-taking” issue. The crisis is slowly unfolding, and hopefully to be resolved the soonest depending on how it is dealt with by the stakeholders around it. This pertains to the Abatan-Mankayan-Cervantes road that is the recipient of a foreign fund worth more than P800million for its rehabilitation.

The immediate communities around it are Tadian in the Western part of Mt. Province , Buguias and Mankayan in Benguet, and Barangay Comillas in the Eastern part of Cervantes. The longer stretch of the government rehab covers that point from the Halsema Highway in Abatan to the boundary of Barangay Colalo, Mankayan and Barangay Comillas, Cervantes which is more or less 53 kilometers in length. The rest of the rehab which is within Cervantes is only about seven kilometers.

As early as that time when the project was bided out by a Chinese construction firm, politicians already started throwing their weight around hoping to grab a cut of the “pie.” I was informed that some of our elected officials in Mankayan have been allotted stakes relative to rehab projects. This was confirmed when I passed thru last week, as piles of sand and gravel lined different sections of the road. Having contractor-politicians in our midst has already become a part of life in this archipelago.

From barangay officials to councilors, mayors, governors and congressmen, up to the office rooms in Malacanang, we encounter contractors among them. However, what is bothersome, at least for me, in relation to the Abatan-Mankayan-Cervantes rehab is the concreting of the road that will come soon after the widening and slope protection projects have been implemented.

The Chinese contractor has already installed its crushing plant machinery and has started stockpiling aggregates sourced out from the contaminated Abra River . And all the more that it should worry the Abatan-Mankayan community if the Chinese contractor starts to process sand and gravel material from the Abra River .

The Chinese contractor has no government issued permit to install a crushing plant while the sand and gravel extracted from the Abra River that it plans to process has not passed the standard quality of material set by the DPWH. Furthermore, the contractor has no Industrial Sand and Gravel permit issued by the DENR-MGB. Also, it has not acquired the community’s Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) as required by law. In short, the contractor is operating illegally.

If the Chinese contractor is not stopped from processing substandard sand and gravel, then the Abatan-Mankayan-Cervantes road will be cemented with substandard material fished out from the Abra River . The mixture of mud and chemicals that flowed with the Abra River from Lepanto will just be plowed back to be used in the rehab project. How long will the concrete road last? That question is raised by those who have been commuting through the 53-kilometer Abatan-Comillas road, and still continue to do so.

The road is a historic stretch that needs attention, at least, for reasons that it not only served as the escape route of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo from the lowlands to the Cordillera and down to Cagayan Valley, or that it linked Igorot gold dealers with the earliest Ilocano tobacco, basi and animal traders. It needs attention because it is the most vital road artery that could spell economic freedom for the Cordillera provinces particularly Benguet, Mt. Province , Ifugao and the Ilocos coast. As of this writing, leaders in the communities affected by these recent developments look at it as an important tourism backbone for Cagayan, the Cordillera and Ilocos as it is still provides commuters the shortest travel time from East Coast to the West and back.

Maybe not all Chinese contractors are comparable to the ones involved in the ZTE-NBN scandal. But there is something in Cervantes that is beyond the control of the Chinese contractor. You guessed it – a local politician seems to have held the contractor by the neck just because the latter is based in his town. That must be eliminated. With the vigilance of the good in Cervantes, Buguias and Mankayan officials, the Abatan-Mankayan-Cervantes rehab can be implemented the way it should be. We should not allow one politician hostage us into letting the contractor use mud in concreting our roads. Perhaps, with the forces composed of Mayor Galuten of Mankayan and his councilors together with Benguet Governor Fongwan, the hand that is in control of the Chinese contractor for the Abatan-Mankayan-Cervantes road will weaken its grip.

In fact, there is a sand and gravel source along the clean Suyoc River that has passed the standard quality for material set by the DPWH. Truth is that the MGB has already issued an industrial sand and gravel (ISAG) permit over that area along the Suyoc River . For goodness sake, the Chinese contractor as the winning bidder of the Abatan-Mankayan-Cervantes road must be guided to that source. ***
On June 16, and 16 years later after it was organized, the first set of officers for the Regional Mines Safety Council in the Cordillera was elected. Election chairman engineer Bart Gogoc of Philex Mines who presided over the meeting said, each of the newly elected officers who are all safety practitioners represent one mining company or aggregate plant in the RMSC- Cordillera chapter.

It is composed of engineer Agustine L. Baliang Jr, of the Mines Geo-sciences Bureau as chairman; engineers Joel S. Son of Philex Mines, co-chairman and Ramon P. Lee of Lepanto Mines, secretary; Juliet Domingo and Maria Carantes of MLC Aggregates, assistant secretaries; Engr. Ricardo Dogwe of Benguet Corp., treasurer; Engr. Jerome Madumba of BB Fischer, auditor; Henry Galgalan of Atok Gold and Isabelita D. Mamuyac of Mountain Rock Aggregates, public relation officers. RMSC hopes to promote safety awareness in mining and quarry areas as well as in metallurgical operations and aggregate plants.

Members of the organization, according to Gogoc, must see to it that safety consciousness is maintained in their respective camps even as they extend assistance to other companies. Elected chairman Baliang, said, it was only recently that the safety engineers thought of formally electing their first set of officers, although the mines safety organization was created a couple of years after the 1990 killer earthquake.

“We hope to assist in keeping communities safe in times of calamities and respond to national and local emergencies, as we have been doing ever since,” the safety council’s co-chair Engr. Son, Philex Mines Safety Department Manager said. Even while the RMSC was yet to be finally organized, they have been sending teams composed of safety engineers to rescue operations in Benguet as well as in Real, Quezon; Diwalwal, Davao ; and St. Bernard, Leyte . -- marchfianza777@yahoo.com