On road quality and maintenance

BENCHWARMER

Ramon S. Dacawi

(This reprint of a piece written in early 2010 May yet be relevant in the wake of the re-digging and re-concreting of roads as if they need to be repaired constantly..–RD.)

We cringe each time we see a concreted road with hardly any sign of damage being torn down by jackhammers, only to be rebuilt with new mix. Highway travelers, snagged and halted by blocks posed by road crews and backhoes at work, can’t help but shake their heads over how project funds can incredulously go down the drain.

If there’s more reason than meets the eye, it’s too technical for us to comprehend beyond the all-too-common argument that the new cement mix could have been poured where the potholes already are instead of creating them on roads that,. to us, laymen, needed no repair in the first place.  

It’s also over my head how an all-weather highway still needs to be black-topped, even just before rainy weather that, somehow, is still predictable despite this so-called climate change.  The asphalt could have gone a long way to improving, say the road to Kapangan, Benguet which is slowly being concreted on some portions. 

Being poor in math, I simply can’t understand. That’s why I never even thought of taking up civil engineering.  I used to depend on the late newsman Willy Cacdac for my assignments in algebra and trigonometry. Willy, a well-rounded figure of competence – as secretary to the mayor, print and broadcast journalist, orator, debater and solver of my math problems - saw things better than I do.

In a training for government supervisors, a classmate of his began spilling bladder over the bad state of roads in his vote-rich province. Noting froth forming on the mouth of the critic of infrastructure priority, Willy took his turn, reminding his classmate how lucky his province was to have such roads, whatever state they might be in.  

“You’re far advanced and less neglected than us in the Cordillera,” Willy told him. “May I also speak of roads that are badly needed by our region of the Cordilleras but  have  yet to be opened,” he juxtaposed and went on.

Willy had one perspective I found flawed. He once told a press conference with infrastructure development officials that the Halsema National Highway, which he aptly termed still the “Mountain Trail”, was the most dangerous in the country because of its condition. 

On the contrary, before it was repaired,  the Mountain Trail was the safest, simply because you couldn’t drive fast on a narrow and bumpy dirt road with numerous sharp bends that gave you the feeling your bus’ rear tire was hanging in the air.

That made our drivers the most courteous, defensive and patient. I admired the way they honk a greeting after readily giving way to each other along the numerous one-way portions..

Travel can only be dangerous during stormy and foggy nights. So cat eyes were installed, but some were pried loose and, I was told, sold to contractors who reinstalled them somewhere. 

Perhaps because we had more pine trees than farmers who could vote, Halsema remained neglected for generations. It took then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to include its rehabilitation in her State of the National address.  

How good the highways men are at rehabilitating, however,  remains to be seen. We are already hearing complaints on sub-standard quality of work on this and other SONA road projects up here.

If so, then  Halsema would have maintained its distinction as one of the most productive to maintain. .“It’s been the most sustainable and productive “payew” (rice terrace) we have,” friend Edmund Bugnosen, an engineer, e-mailed me. “It’s because it requires continuous maintenance.”

Indeed, no traditional rice terrace our ancestors ever carved out of mountainsides could come close to the income derived from the maintenance and repair of this mountain trail, the highest  road system in the country.. The dirt road boosted Cordillera economy, through infrastructure project contracts that also opened labor opportunities for our own people along the route.

Common sense tells us mountain roads require more features than those in the lowlands, like provisions for riprap walls to prevent erosion, drainage canals to check water from scouring  the soil base of  pavements and for clearing landslides until disturbed mountainsides reach an angle of repose.

As typhoons   showed us time and again, lack of drainage canals triggered road slides that now badly needing funds for immediate repair. It gives you the sneaky suspicion road projects were patterned after the way cars are now produced. Vehicle models are not as durable as before, so you have to buy another after some time.

In some instances, priority was on roadside stonewalling rather than actual pavement concreting. “I could have borrowed Batman’s car and drove sideways on the walls if I only knew,” Swanny Dicang, he with the irrepressible humor, muttered as he passed by

In a capital town, a political leader passed on to us a comment from one of his constituents. He was asked why funds are used to concrete roads.

The official said the constituent told him:“Tikuarta, maibulsa, saan nga ma-isemento (Money is to be pocketed, not mixed with cement).”

I thought it was one of those Ifugao jokes But we heard the anecdote in another province - where Ifugao jokes are also relished. (e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments).