SURIGAO del Sur Rep. Romeo Momo Sr. yesterday urged the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to ensure that road maintenance and repair will be prioritized under its 2024 proposed budget, citing as an example the sorry state of the Maharlika Highway or the Pan-Philippine Highway.
Momo, a civil engineer and a former public works undersecretary, also asked his colleagues to back the proposed P822.2 billion budget of the DPWH for road maintenance and repair under the proposed 2024 national budget.
He noted that in 2022, the proposed budget for the maintenance of national roads and bridges was at P16.4 billion, but the lawmaker lamented that only P2.4 billion was approved at the time.
“How can you expect the high level of maintenance if this will continue to exist in the coming years? And if this will not be restored to requested amount then I would assume there will be a rapid deterioration of our national highways, not only of Maharlika but all other highways in the country,” Momo said.
The Daang Maharlika was a project of then President Diosdado Macapagal which was completed during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the 1960s.
The highway, which serves as the country’s principal transport backbone which connects the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao, is a network of roads that starts from Laoag in the Ilocos Region and stretches through Cagayan Valley and the Cordillera Administrative Region and reaches Central Luzon and Metro Manila, Southern Luzon and the Bicol Region, before crossing seas towards Eastern Visayas and then down to Mindanao.
In the plenary budget deliberations last year, House minority leader Marcelino Libanan said the portion of the highway which passes through Samar “is in the worst condition.”
Momo, who was then defending the DPWH’s 2023 budget, said P1.585 billion had been allocated for Samar under the National Expenditure Program but Libanan said it would take at least P9 billion to repair the damaged portions of the road.
Under the DPWH’s proposed budget for 2024, the department requested a total of P115.588 billion for the preventive maintenance of 1,196.398 kilometers of roads and repair of 798.711 kilometers of damaged roads.
Momo, in a manifestation during the DPWH budget hearing last week, also cited the deterioration of Maharlika Highway and other highways which he blamed to “poor maintenance.”
The lawmaker then asked the appropriations committee to approve the requested budget for “basic maintenance allocation” for such task.
“So, can we be assured by the honorable secretary that these proposals for the basic maintenance allocation be maintained and should not be touched so that we can expect a high level of maintenance in the near future or in the coming years?” Momo told the budget hearing attended by Secretary Manuel Bonoan who agreed.
