Baguio road encroachers given time to demolish

By Liza Agoot 

BAGUIO CITY – The city government is giving residents along Naguilian Road and Marcos Highway more time to demolish their structures as the city prepares the plan and budget for the recovery of the roads.
    “We will be giving them sufficient time, around one-year siguro, pinaka maikli na siguro yung eight months (one year probably, the earliest will be eight months) but mostly one year or more," Mayor Benjamin Magalong said in an interview on Wednesday.
    He said the families and owners of the structures have been informed of their encroachment and were already advised that the government will take back the road right-of-way (RROW) for the use of the public.
    “We informed the concerned families and residents na nag overshoot sila (that they overshoot) but in the meantime, na wala naman ongoing na projects pa doon, hindi naman agaran or immediate yung pagtanggal ng structure na nag occupy ng road right of way (there are no ongoing projects yet and the recovery and removal of their structure that encroaches the road will not be urgent),” the mayor said.
    He said making the technical plan, and budgeting will take about two years and the owners of the structures will have ample time to demolish their encroachments while the government has not started the recovery moves.
    He said in identifying those that encroached the RROW, the technical persons were aided by technology and the geographical information system which they overlaid with the digital cadastral mapping with the use of the AutoCAD computer program.
    In the central business district, about 80 percent of the encroachments have been removed and the RROW cleared for use of the people, Magalong said.
    The mayor noted that the road recovery program, which was a direct instruction from President Rodrigo Duterte, is a continuing project of the city government.
    “Hopefully kapag naayos yung ating project sa Naguilian road, isipin mo dati-dati inaabot ng isang oras papunta sa Irisan pero kapag napaluwag natin, ang bilis na baka abutin na lang ng half or 20 minutes lang (when the project at Naguilian road is completed what used to be an hour going to Irisan will only be half an hour or 20 minutes),” Magalong said. -- PNA