Solons shore up infra aid for barangays

Through experience, yours and mine, unless your imported rubber sneakers have never stepped on barrio soil, the more vital improvement that rural folks wish for, especially the farmers, is a paved frontage or a cemented road where they can dry rice harvest before by mobile traders come by.

This time, at least two solons focus their eyes on barangay social justice by introducing House Bill 5612 that aims to provide concrete barangay roads and multi-purpose pavements in all barangays nationwide. It is long overdue but it is better late than nothing.

Under Section 1 of the proposed bill, Representatives Ronald M. Cosalan and Carlos M. Padilla of the Lone Districts of Benguet Province and Nueva Viscaya said, declaring a national policy to provide concrete barangay roads and multi-purpose pavements in all barangays boosts the implementation and promotion of comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform programs that accelerate socio-economic-cultural development in the countryside.

Up to now, the transportation department is busy tackling issues about the management or “mismanagement” of the MRT and LRT as if these are the only things that mattered. The way things appear, the department enjoys disregarding annoying transportation issues in the provinces just because the sector is not as noisy and disturbing as compared to those plying Metro Manila streets.

In that case, a big bulk of the people’s money are diverted to reconstruction and repair of roads traversed by the more noisy transport sectors. In contrast, the farmer who does nothing other than produce food for Filipinos satisfies himself by bringing his products to the market on a pasagad that he pulls on a farm-to-market dirt road untouched by cement. Unfair.

Hence, if the measure becomes a law, hopefully before Congress ends its budget debate within this year, we will see one more landmark legislation that is not only ideal in terms of rural development, it also places development at par in the provinces as taxes become evenly or impartially distributed.

“Cemented roads provide ease in transportation for people and cargo. It hastens not only travel but also communication because barangays become accessible to more people. Thus, development arrives,” Cosalan and Padilla wrote in the explanatory portion of their proposed social justice law.

In your trips to the lowlands, I am sure travel on the cemented national road was quite slow because half of the two-lane pavement was covered with farm products such as palay, corn, peanuts, mongo, copra and coffee that need drying under the sun. Indeed, farmers in barrios need marketing infrastructure such as dryers and storage facilities that prevent them from incurring additional losses. Without the facilities, they are forced to sell to deceitful middlemen at a loss.

Under the proposed bill, construction of such concrete barangay roads and multi-purpose pavements will be given highest priority by the DPWH to barangays whose residents volunteer their labor services in the construction, and in economically depressed barangays in rural areas.

However, barangays without any need for a concrete barangay road or multi-purpose pavement shall have their allocation spent for cementing the grounds of any public school, health center, multi-purpose center, barangay hall, or for barangay alleys.

Barangay roads and multi-purpose pavements once these are constructed, keep national roads exclusively for vehicles thus providing safer travel for motorists. In addition, I am hundred per cent sure that Congressman Padilla has seen roadsides being used for community activities like fiestas, athletic competitions and social gatherings, especially in his hometown in Dupax, Nueva Viscaya.

That is why he is convinced that HB 5621 provides social justice.