Widening horizons

The road is being widened outside our office and I have been spending a bit of time observing how the heavy equipment and the workers go about their business of improving our road network these past few days.

One thing that has become quite clear is that today's contractors seem to be better equipped. Unlike before when the machinery and equipment looked old and dilapidated, the heavy machinery puttering about roadwork projects these days look mostly shiny and new. This is pretty impressive to look at if you judge the contractor's capability and competence on that basis alone, and it gives us hope that the reason why today's contractors have better equipment is that they don't have to spend so much on kickbacks and commissions any more.

However, I often wonder what else has changed aside from the better-looking machinery and equipment of this government's contractors. Is our government really spending the taxpayer's money more efficiently or are the numerous government projects just spending money for the sake of spending money and looking busy?

Take this road widening project outside our office for example.

They are widening the road but it seems that whoever thought of the project didn't really consider what else the widening project would affect and how the work could be done so that when they do finish the project the newly widened road will be truly usable by vehicles and pedestrians alike.

For one thing there are the electric poles. It seems that the contract only includes the roadwork so the contractor is widening the road but keeping the electric poles right where they are. So they break up the sidewalks and everything that will be included in the widening project in preparation for the new road sections but they leave the electric poles where they stand.

This means that when their job is done there will be a wider road, but with giant electric poles in the middle of their newly-widened road. Why can't they include the electric poles in the project so that the public will be inconvenienced only once and that, when they do open that newly widened road, it will be fully usable as a road instead of posing a danger to motorists and providing squatters with nicely concreted areas to set up their homes and shops that might have been displaced by the road widening project?

This disconnect between the Department of Public Works and Highways, the contractor, the local government, the barangay, the affected landowners and business establishments, and the enterprising squatters is the reason why some road widening projects turn out to be useless projects in the end. One fine example would be the widened section of Bacolod's circumferential highway between the new memorial park and CL Montelibano Avenue.

The DPWH widened the road there and pushed back the squatters who had set up all sorts of homes and shops along that highway and when they were done they packed up their heavy equipment and went on their merry way. Within days the squatters had appropriated the expropriated areas for themselves and their homes, parking lots, living rooms and shops re-occupied the newly widened areas that our government had spent millions of pesos on for the benefit of the motoring public.

Come to think of it, the city should look into its own responsibility in seeing to it that the newly widened roads it has been gifted with are maintained and availed of in such a way that they can bring the advantages their construction was intended for.*

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