Public perception of arrogance

BENCHWARMER
Ramon Dacawi

In the wake of public outrage over the daily traffic snarls, the Department of Public Works and Highways apologized for the sudden and simultaneous repair of several roads in Baguio just after the May 10 polls.

A news report said district engineer Ireneo Gallato explained the simultaneous implementation of the repair projects is, in a way, timely, to avail of the remaining sunny days before the actual onset of the rainy season. He added the start of projects depends on when funds for them are released by the Department of Budget and Management. With that explanation, the punch line in the story was that “it is unfair for some sectors to blame them (DPWH)” for the traffic mess.

An exasperated public just can’t see it that way. Having experienced weeks of traffic gridlock when Kennon Rd.’s inclined approach to the city was suddenly widened a couple of years back, daily commuters and motorists can’t listen to the explanation coming after their howls of protest. Passersby see the repair work being rushed as something bordering on arrogance on the part of the agency Senator Aquilino Pimentel once described as a department of bids and awards.

The explanation suggests the issue of turf reflecting the failure of different departments to communicate and coordinate the timely release of the road repair allotments so the projects can be done, perhaps one after the other, with less public inconvenience and outcry. It’s as if the DBM handed to the DPWH three or four CDs of Christmas carols in March, leaving the latter no choice but to play them simultaneously off season.

The public tendency is to compare and contrast. Many insist some of the blocks of road concrete being punched and pried off by jackhammers are still visibly and actually in good shape and need not be destroyed and replaced by fresh concrete. They tell you common sense would have dictated use of the funds for other roads which never had a taste of concrete.

The concreting work unnecessarily dragged city mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. into the controversy. He had nothing to do with the projects that, most likely, will be overtaken by the rainy season. The road repair projects are fully under the DPWH as these are on national roads. Most likely, hizzoner was never informed of their nature and schedule and knew it only when his constituents channeled their grievance to him.

“I’m being accused by some individuals to be behind the repairs of Magsaysay Road and Kennon Road but I wish to mention that (these are) being done by the Department of Public Works and Highways,” the mayor had to clarify.

Curiously enough, there were no signs announced the projects, their specifications, budgets and duration of work. There were signs but these were stolen, the DPWH swore. It gives the sneaky suspicion that even the flag men needed to control traffic round-the-clock but could not be found were also stolen.

The beef of smaller contractors is that the DPWH had always been alert in firing memoranda to them when they fail to provide such signs and other specifications in smaller projects they implement.

BP, the giant petroleum company, finds itself in the same position as the DPWH here, over the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama, who visited the gulf four times, noted the company was spending more to save its image than to save the gulf and the coasts from the expanding calamity. Like the DPWH, the oil firm eventually apologized than announced a $20 billion damage payment fund for those being affected by the environmental crisis.

As the oil continues to wash into American shores and soil, President Obama announced a serious shift towards harnessing less environmentally damaging energy resources. The posture is in stark contrast to the failure of the United States, one of the world’s biggest users of fossil fuel, to sign treaties forged by less powerful countries to reduce greenhouse gas emission such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Locally, the DPWH badly needs a guiding protocol in undertaking road infrastructure projects that are its contribution to the country’s “sustainable development” thrust. Without the protocol, the public would continue to see these road repair projects as symbols of arrogance and sustainable only to those who implement them. (email:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments).