How to build them

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‘… the Millennium road project proves that you can build and pave a road with asphalt and let it stand for a decade.’

ONE of the common complaints of motorists, especially in Metro Manila and other parts of the country, is the frequency of road repairs. I am one of those who oftentimes wonder why what was an erstwhile good road was suddenly being “pulverized” so that it could be repaved. Why repave a portion of the road not requiring repaving?

So all over the country, you see warnings of “slow men working ahead,” which is so appropriate because it takes forever to have short spans of roadwork completed. Oh, and at night? It’s everyman for himself because the one-way roads that result from the construction work are poorly lit and there’s no one or nothing to help ease the flow of traffic, where oncoming vehicles and even trucks have to navigate a one-way portion.

Which is hard to do in a country where motorists do not know how to give way to each other.

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But everything that I’ve written above does not apply to at least one long stretch of road: that which connects the capital of Eastern Samar, Borongan City, to its southernmost LGU, Guiuan town. That’s a total of 111 kilometers.

I know the stretch well because after Super Typhoon Yolanda hit, I was in Eastern Samar (especially Guiuan town) more often between 2013 and 2014 than I ever was in my father’s hometown of Alaminos, Laguna from 2004 to 2014. It was during that time that I witnessed that road being built with funding coming from the Millennium Challenge Account.

Guess what: that was about ten years ago. And the road? Paved in asphalt? It’s hardly suffered from any minor damages all these years. So you can drive the 111 kilometers without ever worrying that there’s a pothole ahead or there’s an unlit barrier that channels traffic from two lanes to one.

Ten years without any repairs.

It can be done.

But why don’t we do it?

Hopefully, someone from the DPWH will read this and be moved by a Higher Calling even at the risk of being fired (or worse?) and upending the current system of public works and contracting that is done in such a poor manner. How it’s done over the last few decades should no longer be the way things are done when it comes to the DPWH, because the Millennium Road project proves that you can build and pave a road with asphalt and let it stand for a decade.

But even for argument’s sake, we say that since the traffic along the Guiuan to Borongan road is only half the traffic in most other provinces, then let’s accept that the road will need repair in, say, five years. Five years? That’s still a lifetime better than the annual “road repair” that’s done in most places around the country on — take note — concrete pavement.

Concrete pavement requires repaving almost every year against a stretch of road paved in asphalt that needs repaving only every five years.

Something funny here, no? So funny some people laugh all the way to the bank, yes?

The Americans have shown us how to build them.

(As usual, we just do not listen.)

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