LET'S talk about roads. Almost half of our lives we pass through many of them, either by walking or riding a vehicle. There is a tragic stressfulness every time a motorist makes use of them. We in the past many, many years wanted the government to end corruption in the construction of a national highway or even the so-called barangay road or a farm to market roads. But it seems, it will not end until kingdom come as long as we have that system popularly known in the circles as SOP. (Ask your favorite Senator, Congressman or any of the public officials they know what that acronym means).
Traveling MacArthur Highway from its starting point in Pangasinan up to Balintawak in Caloocan City is no smooth ride. Several portions have seen better days. All patchworks. Bumpy ride. Nerve-wracking with all those tricycles and kolong kolong racing with brand new SUVs. Daredevil motorcycle riders who think they are Evil Knievel have no fear of death. I travel very often, almost daily and maybe most of you reading this article, from Angeles City up to San Fernando. That particular stretch of the road needs to be replaced, or maybe asphalt layover throughout. Paging DPWH Secretary Mark Villar.
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Last week, sand haulers barricaded toll gates of the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) and caused kilometer long traffic.
This is the story behind this: There was a time when trucks sourcing sand from Porac only averages 16 to 22 cubic meters of load. (Trivia: Did you know that 70 percent of the sand delivered to Manila is being sourced in Porac town?) It was greed and cutthroat competition that started it. Many of the companies delivering sand to construction sites in the Metro Manila area began increasing their load, and most of those Howo trucks carry a heavy load up to 40 cubic meters.
That load may have caused cracks and destruction of the expressway including the Candaba viaduct. So the NLEx management decided to deny them entry. Denied passage, the truck drivers accessed MacArthur highway but towns along the highway are strictly checking their load and are selective. And pass way payments even without government official receipts are collected from passing sand trucks.
Due to the circuitous and the heavy traffic along the MacArthur highway, the truck owners requested a meeting with the NLEx management. According to my source, there were two occasions wherein NLEx management snubbed the invitation of the truck owners, so the option was to barricade the toll plazas and force NLEx in the conference table.
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Another nerve-wracking situations being experienced by motorists are these RFID on toll gates. The technology is there but it is far from perfect. Those bright boys kuno from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) are no bright boys at all.
RFID means radio frequency identification. A radiofrequency can read more than a kilometer distance. I experienced this in my travels in many countries. And I observed that aside from these RFID lanes, there are one or two cash lanes that also serve for loading if you have less balance.
Why DOTr enforced it prematurely even if it is far from perfect and only backtracked later will tell us it was not carefully studied. In the meantime, hundreds of workers of NLEx will be laid-off as a result.