By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
The other week when it was raining like hell, the Baguio City garbage transfer station along Marcos Highway was the cause of mud being washed to the road making the steep incline about 100 meters away very slippery to heavy trucks.
Further downhill, more mud was also being washed into the same steep road because of a driveway being constructed by a private developer that appears to soon put up a condominium project.
The result, big trucks were stalled on that accident prone area blocking the way. Traffic was at a standstill for kilometers and it lasted for more than six hours. This phenomenon got repeated several times the past weeks. Of late, you would hear the siren of ambulances there almost everyday as acccidents were always occurring.
And concerned government agencies are not doing anything about the problem. There will be more accidents and more “life and limb” lost— some might be happening while this piece is being written—and the government would still not be doing anything. Such untoward incidents had been happening for decades already on that killer part of the Marcos Highway.
Government officials will of course say that nothing can be done about the problem. On the contrary, a lot of things can be done.
Firstly, the operator of that garbage transfer station should be ordered to implement proper measures for the mud not to be washed into the road. It should have been ordered to do that before starting to operate. A related step should be the cementing of that facility. It would have been very convenient to do that before the rains came but the operator might have been thinking, “Why incur the added expense when the government is a joke anyway?”
So as trucks go in and out there, they are carrying out mud which becomes dust on the road when it dries and being bellowed into the air by passing vehicles poisoning everybody in the vicinity and those in cars and buses traveling through. When it rains it becomes a gooey slippery mud as earlier mentioned.
And to think that the local Environmental Management Bureau just recently said that the facility is compliant with environmental regulations. Only in the Philippines.
As to the developer down the road, the DENR must also make it comply with the conditions of its ECC. Am sure this includes taking measures not to endanger the lives of people which was what accidents it had been causing were doing.
As to the trucks, it was shown again and again the past decades, more so in the past days, that they cannot safely negotiate that killer of a road when it rains. They should be made to pass through Naguilian Road. While that route is longer, it is safer to the trucks’ crew themselves and the public in general.
Then a “wrecker” should be stationed on that killer spot to pull out vehicles that get stuck for various reasons during the rainy season. The vehicles that get pulled should pay the proper charges for such. It might be expensive but, at least, the public in general, especially travelers will not be inconvenienced. And many “life and limb” would be saved.
Many times in the past, public officials with the aid of “mambunongs” conducted “kanyaws” in the area but accidents still happened causing the loss of numerous lives. Whatever the merits of these, the past many decades have shown that they failed to solve the problem. Which means that more scientific measures are our hope.**
