Arroyo asked to stop all Cordillera SoNA projects

By Dexter A. See

BONTOC, Mountain Province — Church-led multi-sectoral groups in the Cordillera have called on President Arroyo to suspend immediately the implementation of all her State-of-the-Nation Address (SoNA) projects in the region for alleged violations by the implementors.

The groups said the temporary stoppage of the projects would allow an unhampered investigation to be conducted by an independent fact-finding team.

The recommendation for suspension of work on the projects was contained in a confidential report submitted by Presidential Assistant for Cordillera Affairs Tom Killip to the Office of the President.

Earlier, the office of Killip reviewed “damaging reports and findings” submitted by various monitoring groups tasked to oversee the implementation of the P5.2-billion infrastructure projects in Mountain Province, Ifugao, and Kalinga.

In one of the SoNA projects, the reports stated, pine-lumber forms are by the contractors instead of steel forms. It was also found out that there was no substantial work done and no substantial mobilization of equipment.

The same alleged defects of the SoNA projects in Mountain Province and Ifugao were also found in the multi-billion-peso SoNA projects in Kalinga despite the continuous assurances by officials of the Department of Public works and Highways (DPWH) in the Cordillera.

A controversy which continuously delays the implementation of the flagship projects of the President is the alleged intervention by some generals who were reported to have connections with authorities all the way to Malacanang.

They reportedly tried to pressure a contractor into abandoning his projects.

The multi-sectoral groups believed the implementors can no longer meet the prescribed deadline set by the President to complete her flagship projects, saying the contractors need a miracle to do so. The deadline is end of this year.

Earlier, the implementors of SoNA projects in the region, who were fed up by the delays in the processing of the documents on their projects, asked Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. to discipline his men in the field, especially some Cordillera DPWH officials who allegedly allow non-technical people to interfere in the preparation of the plans and specifications of projects.

The SoNA projects of the President in the region include the P1.9-billion rehabilitation of Phases II and III of the Halsema Highway, particularly the portion from Mount Data to Bontoc and Bontoc to Banaue, Ifugao, and the P3.2-billion upgrading of the Bontoc-Tabuk-Tuguegarao Road.