ANGELES CITY -- A golf course owner and leader of the advocacy group Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) has dared public works officials in Central Luzon to allow quarry trucks hauling gravel and sand from Porac town use the western portion of the megadike as alternate route.

Ruperto Cruz said Friday that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) regional office headed by Director Alfredo Tolentino should consider the proposal of the Porac Quarry Association (PQA), which calls for the usage of the dike during the truck ban period in this city.

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"They should allow the quarry trucks pass over the dike. This will also allay fears that the structure is substandard," Cruz said.

The businessman also suggested for a total truck ban in this city, saying local roads are being destroyed by overloaded quarry trucks.

Cruz said the Friendship circumferential road, which traverses through his properties, including Grand Palazzo Royal, Royal Garden Golf and Country Club, and Cioccolo Cafe, is now threatened because of heavy vehicles passing.

He said unless the City Government imposes a total truck ban, the city roads would deteriorate in a short period.

Tolentino earlier told Sun.Star Pampanga that the DPWH could not allow the truckers to use the dike. The multi-billion structure, he said, was built to contain lahar and floodwater and not to be used as service road by heavy vehicles like trucks loaded with quarry materials.

The City Government here has decided to impose a 15-hour truck ban from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. starting November 15 to decongest during rush hours a busy intersection in Barangay Cutcut, which leads to the Clark Freeport.

Mike Tapang, PQA president, sent a proposal to Tolentino, asking the agency to allow them use the western portion of the Megadike.

Quarry trucks hauling sand from different parts of the province have been using the structure as alternate route over the past 10 years, according to Tapang.

This did not affect the general integrity of the dike as a protective structure of several Pampanga town against lahar and floodwater, he claimed.

The DPWH has been preventing quarry trucks from using the Megadike. Some years ago, it even constructed vertical clearance markers along the dike to force trucks from keeping away from the structure.

Two years ago, however, the DPWH complained about the mysterious disappearance of the concrete marker.