Just about a week of moderate intermittent rain and our Cordilleran roads were blocked or some parts were cut due to landslides. This would have been understandable were the rains the likes of what we got during typhoona Feria and Pepeng some years back. Those typhoons were really bad, pouring in about a day what we usually get in a month.
Or if the roads were not gone or blocked, many parts of the pavement were washed away. While there might be landslide prone areas, these could have been remedied during the widening or construction process. If you ever noticed, the parts of Marcos Highway and Naguilian Road which were “shotcrete” are still generally stable even after decades.
What often slide down to the road are the mountainsides that were not “shotcrete” but should have been. Why? The contractor did not spend for those parts so he would be able to give to politicians the SOP or grease money they demanded. Otherwise, he would have been dead as a contractor.
As to the pavement being easily washed away, no other cause that could be found but substandard quality or workmanship. Again because of the SOP or grease money that contractors have to shell out to politicians. The bureaucrats in government regulatory agencies could not do anything. If they opposed what the politicians were doing regarding grease money, they would have been fired or transferred to Tawi-tawi.
So the bureaucrats have become the front liners in the corruption process. Their motto now is to let contractors undertake their projects in a substandard way as long as their share from the booty is also given.
And so we, the citizens will continue to suffer. But we are also a big part of the problem. We sell our votes every election time and so politicians have to somehow raise money for that by extorting from contractors.
Thus, whenever one’s trip is delayed because of a landslide or when potholes are all over the road after just a day of rain, one should just mutter or say to himself, “because we are stupid.”**