Wednesday, July 09, 2008 Del Mar, DPWH asked on status of road widening
PEOPLE are asking Rep. Raul del Mar (Cebu City, north) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) on the status of the widening of Gov. Manuel Cuenco Ave., almost a month after the promise was made last June 14.
Cebu City Councilor Sylvan Jakosalem said residents, commuters, government officials, and drivers have been nagging the City on the start of the road expansion, which will help ease traffic at the flyover construction site in Barangay Banilad.
City councilors and department heads who attended a luncheon meeting in the house of City Councilor Nestor Archival in Barangay Talamban yesterday saw for themselves the situation in the area.
Construction was promised to be finished by the end of July.
But because the DPWH still failed to secure entry permits from all lot owners, it was forced to admit that the project will not end this month.
“Where is the widening that they said will start on June 16? People had been asking, even drivers approached me on my way to Y101 (at the Gaisano Country Mall building in Banilad) where is ‘our’ widening, as if it is the City which implemented the project,” Jakosalem said.
In a press conference last June 14, del Mar instructed DPWH 7 Legal Counsel Agustinito Hermoso and District Engineer Nicomedes Leonor to accompany project engineer Christopher Semilla in entering the private properties to start the road widening on June 16.
The instruction came after the announcement that the 34 owners could already be paid in full because of the availability of P80 million, on top of the P40 million announced ahead of that meeting.
Jakosalem said he asked Semilla through text message, and the WTG Construction and Development engineer told him that they still have to receive the entry permits from the owners.
“Wala pa man mi nakasulod sa mga lots kay wala pa nisugot ang tag-iya sa mga yuta (We haven’t been able to enter the lots because the owners still haven’t given us their permission),” he quoted Semilla as saying.
Leonor, Jakosalem said, also told him that another lot owner, aside from the Gos, has not yet signed a contract with the DPWH because of concerns over their property.
Jakosalem said people wonder more on the widening and not on the end of the construction because of its implication on the traffic situation in the Banilad-Talamban area.
This is made more pressing, he said, because a few schools that did not start classes last month will do so today.
The project, started last Feb. 1, was contracted to be finished by Nov. 31, or for nine months.
But because of several appeals, Semilla told the city council during one of its sessions that WTG could still do so by the end of July if all legal hitches, particularly securing entry permits, are ironed out by June 15 at the latest. (RHM)
