Briones: A long road ahead

WELL, it’s a start.

Work on Segment 3 of the 73-kilometer-plus Metro Cebu Expressway has begun. Sort of. In Barangay Pangdan in the City of Naga.

According to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), it wants to finish the P300-million project before the term of President Rodrigo Duterte ends in 2022.

Implementing it is QM Construction.

I love how the agency is so optimistic. I guess you just have to be when talking about infrastructure projects in this part of the world. I mean, it hasn’t even completed widening the highway down south. If it has, it certainly doesn’t look it.

Anyway, for the sake of progress and Cebu’s development, the DPWH can rest assured that it has my support.

I wonder if the contractor is aware that funding for Segment 3, which, by the way, only covers the 17.5-kilometer stretch between the City of Naga and the Minglanilla-Talisay boundary, is still on hold. The Department of Budget and Management can’t release it until the President approves the 2019 General Appropriations Act.

Whoever owns QM Construction must have deep pockets. Otherwise, how will it afford to pay for the fuel of its heavy equipment or the salaries of its workers? It does have enough heavy equipment and workers, right? You see, sometimes, these kinds of projects bog down or take years to complete because the contractor only deploys a handful of people and one or two pieces of heavy equipment to work on them.

I have to admit, P300 million for 17 kilometers or so of concrete in Cebu’s hinterland is kind of cheap.

According to the breakdown, P265 million will go to the actual civil works, while the rest will be spent on road right-of-way acquisitions. That’s not much when you come to think of it. Really. Perhaps, the agency needs to clarify.

DPWH 7 Director Edgar Tabacon did say, back in January, that “the civil works is still the continuation of (a) road opening of 40 meters wide and (the) initial concreting of a four-lane road at the length of 1.7 kilometers.”

So am I correct in assuming that the P300 million is only for that 1.7-kilometer stretch of concrete? Because that actually makes more sense. You know, an outrageous price tag on a government project is what the public expects.

Then Segment 3 of the Metro Cebu Expressway will end up costing the government well over P4 billion. Unless, of course, my math is wrong. Considering that I’m such a genius with numbers, let’s just say the amount is in the ballpark.

So I guess a journey of 73 kilometers—the expressway is supposed to reach Danao City in the north—begins with P300 million.

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