Set P25-M for Sagada, Bauko roa

Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- The opening of a farm to market road here to connect this tourist town and nearby Bauko was identified as a priority need for development in southern Sagada to make farms more accessible.
The Sangguniang Bayan in a resolution urged Agriculture Sec. Manny Pinol to facilitate allocation of P25 million for improvement of said FMR  to reduce agricultural expense and boost productivity. 

Southern Sagada composed of five barangays Balugan, Ankileng, Suyo, Taccong and Nacagang is the food basket of the town and grows vegetables, fruits and bananas.

Women vendors from this part of the town consistently market their agricultural produce at Poblacion  during Saturdays. 

Some landholdings of residents from southern Sagada  are found on  the mountain slopes near the desired FMR  leading to Balintaugan in Bauko town.

Opening of the  Balugan- Balintaugan- road would also make tourism more accessible from the town proper  to Bauko. 

Balintaugan  has the Spanish Trail  trail which Spaniards then traversed from Ilocos, to Tadian. They then climbed the mountains to Balintaugan to establish Bagnen then the municipio of Ilocos- Bontoc province during the Spanish period.

Balintaugan is also where a wide filed is located which served as  airfield where US planes transported food rations for its soldiers in the Philippines during World War 2. 

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Following clearing of landslides  after series of typhoons along  Madoto road  starting from Pingyan bridge  towards  Suyo and Poblacion,  Taccong  barangay  chairman  Artemio Buteng now wants repair of   damaged road section from the bridge towards Taccong proper.

The damaged road is part of the Taccong-Suyo  tourism road  implemented by contractor  BMK Construction and the Department of  Public Works and Highways costing  a P128 million and sub-contracted to five local contractor groups in 2015.

Said road is a continued  road project of the P100 million Madepdeppas Sabangan -Taccong  Sagada under the convergence program of the  Department of  Tourism and the DPWH.   

Earlier the road going up towards Taccong from the Pingyan bridge  was damaged with the retaining wall destroyed when heavy rains  rammed thin protection wall late May this year.

The slope protection has not yet been repaired by contractor BMK Construction as of press time.
The damaged road section adjacent the retaining wall remains to be unconstructed. 

Due to the damaged road, folks here bring their products to the  bridge and load these in waiting public jeepneys plying the Madoto road to Poblacion.

With  landslides along the  Madoto road after super typhoon Lawin, Buteng in a letter requested  Mayor James Pooten to facilitate clearing of said road.

Pooten endorsed said letter to DPWH- Mountain Province District Engineeer Wilbur LIkigan  reiterating the need for clearing operations on said  road.

Likigan in an interview said the road has been implemented by the regional office and thus clearing is also their command responsibility.

Said road damage was recently cleared  by DPWH men from the Province and Region enabling motorists now to pass on the road.

Residents here at Taccong and nearby  Nacagang  are  glad that there is a road to link them to the market outlet at Sagada Poblacion and enable them to bring their products to market.