HAPPY WEEKEND

The battered Halsema highway
Gina Dizon

I had been traveling the 151 kilometer long, rugged, and weathered Halsema Highway for the nth time. This stretch of the road which stops from the newly rehabilitated Baguio-Benguet Road, still looks grumpy, narrow, and its slopes ready to cascade down the road at the slightest rain.

Just a week ago, the road near the capital town of Bontoc , momentarily closed for at least four hours due to a landslide that made passengers walk to the other side of the road and transfer to a waiting vehicle. What a waste of time and effort.

This sorry-looking road which traverses to the fifth class Mountain Province had always been that way. While millions of money get poured to this road year in year out for small-time rip-rapping and resealing, this Baguio-Bontoc road nearly in all its 50 km stretch, still looks as emaciated, shabby and as miserable as ever.

One glaring evidence of battered road works are weighed-down rip rap projects, where, a few months if not weeks after, chances are, another riprap project will be done on the same site. What an ingenious way to spend taxpayer’s money.

Having been called the “abortion road of the north or “milking cow,” one could feel the bumps as one travels the highway especially along the Baguio-Bontoc road. You have to ride at least comfortably enough with heavy-duty GL Trans to avoid the bumps.

This sorry-looking road had claimed lives due to narrow, dangerous curves, un-buffered road sides, and large holes. The Baguio-Bontoc road is a far cry from the already finished Baguio-Benguet road which makes one feel the comfort and safety of traveling on a concreted and slope protected street. Coming from Mountain Province , I am that envious.

The recent start of the second phase of the rehabilitation of the Halsema Highway particularly the 50.5 km Baguio- Bontoc road is as usual, eyed with suspicion of its implementation. With a reported 23 percent accomplishment, how corrupt-free or how genuine is this trumpeted accomplishment?

With at least P340 million already released for the Baguio-Bontoc road and implemented by the department of public works and highways, the current accomplishment if you will travel along this road will let you see a few stretches of unconnected concreted road aside from those usual rip-rap works.

An estimated cost of at least P20 million is the cost per 2 kilometers. With an estimated 17 kilometers of concreted roads to cover the given amount, I don’t even see five kilometers of concreted road from the P340 million priority funds. Road works are ongoing with small time-rip raps and stone walled protection slopes (not the shotcreted protection slope which I see along the Atok trail)

And reports say at least 16 projects are already on going along the Mt Data- Bontoc road! A complaint forwarded to the office of the ombudsman was forwarded by a private contractor alleging thin guard rails used along the Gonogon road, double pricing of materials, surfacing of already surfaced road portions, negative slippages, subcontracting and substandard works and materials used along the Baguio- Bontoc road.

Calling the Dept. of Public Works and Highways and all project monitoring groups. How true are these allegations?

I wonder what the office of the ombudsman is doing about these alleged complaints. Just how much of road project works is lost to corruption? The DPWH which is one of the most corrupt departments in the national government, the corrrupt and the receiver of corrupted funds, know.

While this is so, the beleaguered Baguio-Bontoc road reeks of high negative slippages according to a complaint directed to presidential staff Cerge Remunde by private contractor Juniper Dominguez who said contracted road works have not yet began despite the alleged release of the 15 percent mobilization funds discharged at the heat of the recent May elections.

I happened to travel along the Halsema Highway very recently and one nearly- to- expire contract has construction men busy commencing road works.