Blues once more on road diggings

BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon

BAGUIO CITY – Residents here need not fret too much as it seems, multi million peso road diggings, which had created massive traffic jams and caused misery to a lot of people, are not confined to this “character city” but nationwide. Like Metro Manila.

Can’t blame people, like my bubwit,who thought the diggings were the evil plans of the “magic circle” of officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways. It seems, according to pundits, these happy people in the DPWH, were just trying to justify or sugarcoat implementation of road works with jargon like “re-blocking” or “rehabilitation.”

How could they not do that, as it was President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III himself, on a visit here, who apologized to the Filipino people who were encountering inconveniences because of simultaneous diggingactivities. He said these were meant to boost business through infrastructure development.

Look now, but regional and city DPWH bigwigs were just doing their job of making sure that taxpayers’ money was spent for the roads which according to some private engineers, need not have been dug as these were still structurally strong or stable and could have lasted a couple of years.

These DPWH officials actually said a mouthful with their technical jargon in their recent press conference here on the need to repair these roads, although as most constituents of this “city of characters” noted, the roads were still durable. The real state of the matter, as my bubwit phrased it, was that the roads needed fixing as there was an outlay of funds to fund the works. This Banana Republic is not so poor after all.

So now, let us not be too hard on our DPWH officials, according to my bubwit,since they were just making sure that P-Noy’s, daannamatuwid programs were followed to the letter.

You see, during a press conference at Camp John Hay, the President himself said it was“unfortunate”that funds for infrastructure projects nationwide were released that resulted to simultaneous implementation of the works. He said it was better to have development projects rather than have nothing at all.

“Please bear with the inconveniences of the different road constructions. We have to at least sacrifice for the advancement of our nation,” the President said.

According to him, the national government was taking advantage of low interest rates in acquiring loans to bankroll infrastructure development.P-Noy explained now that the United States, European and Japanese economies were down, the world economy was also on down trend, thus, the existence of low interest rates in terms of borrowings which is now being taken advantage of by the administration in seeking funds to support programmed infrastructure development nationwide.

The President said there will be significant infrastructure development all over the country in the remaining four years and ten months of his administration since they were trying to maximize utilization of available resources to improve accessibility to the countryside considering that improved infrastructure was a key factor in determining economic growth.

Before the world powers will be able to recover from the slump in their respective economies that could trigger a substantial increase in interest rates globally, Aquino said the country must be able to position itself by acquiring available low interest loans to be used to fund vital development projects and improve living condition of people which will translate to economic growth so the Philippines will be at par with the pace of development in the global arena.

P-Noy said to ensure that implementation of projects will lessen inconvenience to the public, he directed the DPWH to hasten public works projects without sacrificing quality of work.

He added his administration envisions to complete development of all national roads in the country that will significantly improve inter-provincial and inter-regional linkages as well as 80 percent of secondary arterial roads through public-private partnerships and availability of soft loans from international funding institutions.

My bubwit just shrugged his head. He said he wanted to drive somewhere to sort out the logic of government policies and administration but he didn’t have a car. Maybe, he could acquire one in the future considering that the roads were being fixed.