The fate of various calamity-related projects for Mountain Province is now up to the Department of Public Works and Highways-Cordillera Administrative Region and the Mountain Province First District Engineering Office but these offices appear not to be doing their jobs. The DPWH-CAR and MPFDEO have yet to act on the early recommendations of the agency’s central office to already proceed with the preparation of the programs of work, bidding and implementation of said projects. Said projects sustained serious damage during the onslaught of Typhoons Ineng, Mario, and Lawin.
On January 17, 2017, the DPWH-Central Office has endorsed the immediate repair and rehabilitation of at least two major bridges in Mountain Province which have been damaged by last year’s Typhoon Lawin. A month after the memorandum was issued, the agency officials in the region and district have yet to act on it.
DPWH Secretary Mark A. Villar, in a meeting with Congressman Maximo B. Dalog, approved the immediate restoration of the Chico-Karayan Bridge located at Samoki, Bontoc, Mountain Province linking the capital town of Bontoc to Ifugao, Nueva Vizcaya and the rest of the country. A span of the bridge declined last October 20, 2016 and was closed to heavy vehicles as of press time. As a result, Villar sent a panel of experts to evaluate the said bridge.
After the inspection made by a bridge specialist, Dante B. Potante, Director of the Bureau of Design of the DPWH, recommended the retrofitting of piers 6 and 7 of the bridge by underpinning the foundation and replacing the deck slabs from spans 5 to 8 including the replacement of all girders of spans 6 and 7. He also recommended the repair of all defects on the rest of the bridge.
Potante said the Chico Karayan Bridge needed immediate remedial measures like the provision of temporary shoring to support the defective girders to avoid span failure including the maintenance of the two ton load limit capacity of the bridge. However, the concerned officials of DPWH-CAR and MPFDEO have yet to take action in response to the recommendations of the central office even after more than a month from the issuance of the Bureau of Design memorandum.
Likewise, the rehabilitation of the detour bridge in Sabangan connecting Mountain Province and Baguio City and the Ilocos Provinces remains in limbo, not until said DPWH-CAR and MPFDEO officials put their act together and manifest some sense of urgency to accomplish the project.
Let it be recalled that numerous other calamity-related projects that should have been bidded-out and implemented last year lapsed because of the seeming negligence of some of the agency’s officials for not proceeding with the bidding even if their counterparts in the national level told them to do so. To name a few of these projects that have been halted because of pure inefficiency are: Bayoyo Drainage, Talubin River Control, Teng-ab Retaining Wall, Pey-esan Flood Control, Upper Chico Flood Control, and Drainages in Bauko, Mountain Province. The total amount of calamity funds that could have benefited Mountain Province last year was about P135 million.
As one observer said, these officials will wake up to their senses if some concerned citizens, particularly those who talk a lot in Bontoc, Mountain Province to file Ombudsman cases against these officials. At the very least, they should be reported to the hotline 8888.**Erlindo Agwilang
