Kennon Road to open for limited use as rehab on

BAGUIO CITY — The historic Kennon Road will be opened for residents only and temporarily while rehabilitation projects are ongoing.

The decision to open the scenic and historic road was reached by the members of the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council during an inter-agency consultative meeting amidst howls about the extreme traffic congestion ON Marcos Highway and demands of residents along Kennon to ease their suffering.

The Regional Development Council and the Regional Peace and Order Council earlier also prodded the regional office of the Public Works department to fast track the opening of the road.

The RDRRMC has authorized Tuba Mayor Ignacio Rivera to issue temporary passage permits to the residents who will be allowed to pass through Kennon pending the outcome of inspections to determine the deployment of a sufficient number of police personnel along the road, the installation of appropriate early warning signages and the deployment of enough emergency vehicles in strategic portions of the highway.

Results of the inspection will serve as a basis to officially open Kennon to residents' vehicles.

DPWH CAR however requires a MOA to be inked between Tuba municipal officials led by Mayor Ignacio Rivera, barangay officials, representatives of law enforcement and government agencies stating their commitments in ensuring that only the vehicles of residents of barangays along the road will be allowed temporary access to Kennon Road.

Further, around 10 public utility jeepneys serving the route Baguio to Pozzorubio and Baguio-Rosario via Kennon Road will be allowed to pass through, provided that they will only pick up passengers in the boundary of Benguet and La Union and vice versa.

Local governments are also allowed to submit a list of official vehicles used for emergency and disaster response to the RDRRMC for the issuance of temporary vehicle passes.

Irked, Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan, chairman of the RDC and the RPOC, said DPWH-CAR has a lot of explaining to do with the prolonged closure of the road and lambasted at officials who had remained unmoved by the pleas of residents along Kennon Road, which was closed in September due to landslides and typhoon damage.

Domogan pushed opening of Kennon road to light vehicles saying it will decongest monstrous traffic along Marcos highway and other major roads leading to Baguio City, especially with the expected influx of visitors for the upcoming 24th edition of Panagbenga in February next year, the annual alumni homecoming of the Philippine Military Academy, the series of graduation rites of various universities and colleges and the Holy Week and Summer in Baguio activities.

Domogan, who chairs the Cordillera Regional Development Council and Regional Peace and Order Council said Kennon Road suffered much graver damages during natural calamities since the July 16, 1990 killer earthquake and the road was immediately opened to vehicular traffic that is why there is no reason for the Cordillera office of the Department of Public works and Highways and its project implementers to be delayed in the opening of the road to light vehicles.

He claimed that the issues being raised by the public is the fact that the closure of the road has been too long aside from the issue on the snail-paced implementation of rehabilitation projects along various sectors of the historic zigzag road.

Kennon Road remains the shortest route to and from the city because motorists traverse the 23-km road in less than an hour while it will take them over an hour to reach Baguio City when travelling via Marcos highway or the newly opened Tubao-Nangalisan-Baguio road.

Domogan said it is not logical for DPWH-CAR officials to reason out that it is the central office that is empowered to open what had closed because the existence of the agency’s regional office is useless considering that it is supposed to provide advice to higher authorities on what should be done to help in decongesting major roads leading to the city to allow the convenience of motorists wanting to spend their well-deserved vacation in the city.

Earlier, the DPWH-CAR and the Bureau of Design identified critical sections of the road that needed rehabilitation. after the said road sections were heavily damaged by the month-long monsoon rains August last year, wrath of typhoons Ompong and Rosita last September and October, respectively.

Aside from the shotcreting of the Klondykes section of the road, other major projects being implemented along Kennon road are the construction of the Camp 5 bridge, the repair and rehabilitation of the Camp 1 and Camp 6 bridges and the slope protection wall projects in different sections of the road which were affected by the previous weather disturbances that visited the Cordillera over the past several months. – With a report from Dexter A. See