MORE NEWS, NUEVA VIZCAYA

Truckers take advantage of defective weigh bridge
By Joan Capuna

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — Truckers and traders in Region 2 using the national highway are loading cargos beyond the allowed load limit taking advantage of a defective weigh bridge here.

Marlon Santos of the Motorcycle Club of Vizcaya said there are trucks passing through the highway loaded with cargos higher than allowed load because there is no working weigh bridge to check the weight.

The Region 2 Dept of Public Works and Highways had been urging traders and cargo haulers to comply strictly with Republic Act 8794, the Anti-Overloading Law to minimize damage to national roads and bridges.

Last year, the provincial office of DPWH reported 2,942 of the 3,760 cargo trucks that had been weighed were found overloaded.

But an engineer at the DPWH provincial office in Nueva Vizcaya, who requested anonymity, said that the department’s weigh bridge in Aritao, one of only two government-operated weigh bridges in the region, has been inoperative since December.

The other weigh bridge is in Claveria, Cagayan.

The engineer said the provincial DPWH office sent several requests to the regional office for replacement of the defective digital scale but no action has been taken. "We have tried communicating with the regional office, but I think we have to wait a little more because there may be no budget for it."

The Aritao weigh bridge began its operations in the early 1980s.

"The non-working weigh bridge makes the enforcement of RA 8794 futile," he also said.
The defective weigh bridge was blamed by motorists for heavy traffic on the steep zig-zag in Santa Fe town.

The traffic snarl causes inconvenience to travelers and delay in transport of goods to and from the region.

A report from DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane said 13 billion is spent annually on repairs alone for 30,000 kilometers of national roads, but it could easily balloon to P20 billion due to overloading.

A study by the Road Information and Management Support System showed most overloading cases occurred in Northern and Central Luzon.