SO, AGAIN, we now have a case where people directly involved in a government project suddenly becomes a sort of “committee on hindsight,” a pool of experts in recollection. Consequently, while the reminiscing transpires, we leave everyone wading in floodwater in the highway traversing Barangay Mambaling.
It turned out that one essential component of the underpass and flyover projects in the area did not materialize.
Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 Director Edgar Tabacon said the P16.7-million road widening project, which also included a drainage system component, hit a snag when the agency failed to acquire the road right-of-way (RROW) on time, attributing it to the court’s delay in the issuance of writ of acquisition, a process that started in 2017 yet.
As a result, the comprehensive drainage system, which was supposed to compensate for the subsequent loss of the old drainage that traversed the underpass construction, wasn’t implemented.
It also turned out that the cistern, supposedly patterned after the subterranean smart tunnel in Kuala Lumpur, is nothing but a catching pond that Tabacon said is “not as big as an Olympic pool.” That underground feature is supposed to hold runoff water from Barangays Pardo and Mambaling. That diminutive design perhaps reflects the imagination of our engineers, considering the deluge of rain volume, which the weather bureau says is the new normal under climate change conditions.
City Councilor Eduardo Rama Jr., in the Council session with the DPWH officials, was right, “kani nga project, sipyat ni sa pagsugod pa lang daan (this project was a failure from the start).”
Lost in the runaround now is that sense of accountability. This Council discussion would most likely just amount to palliative prescriptions on solving the problem of flooding in the short term.
Indeed, the DPWH 7 has appeared before the City’s legislators already armed with a solutions list. It includes, and pardon for the technical jargon, installation of a mobile water pump; regular desilting of existing drainage lines; increasing the inlet and conduit areas of the existing drainage system; laying of additional pipelines for run-off disposal directed to the underpass sump pit; and reconstruction of the lost drainage line.
Quite a mouthful, but essentially, that is just like doing a Heimlick maneuver on a choking fellow, just getting the bone out of the airway.
But the root cause of the problem isn’t addressed. And that is the sloppy ways our bureaucracy work in the implementation of projects, not to mention the opacity of our agencies in carrying out large-scale infrastructure projects.
President Rodrigo Duterte no less has pointed out rampant corruption in the DPWH, specifically mentioning aspects on road right-of-ways and irregularities perpetuated by project engineers.