‘… the bright boys in government are never bright enough to insist on coordinated work to maximize the value of their efforts.’
WHENEVER I am home in Alaminos, I choose to have my breakfast and lunch (and sometimes even early dinner) in one of the many good-to-great eating places in neighboring San Pablo City. My old favorite was Razon’s, the Pampanga restaurant on the second floor of SM San Pablo. But it didn’t survive the second year of the pandemic and has permanently closed.
In the mall, my usual go-to place now is Mesa, whose bangus bistek I just adore.
Nearby, there’s also old reliable Max’s.
But San Pablo has other, even better dining options, all locals: Sulyap, Samuel’s Gastropub (whose Cebu lechon is to die for), as well as Casa San Pablo, to name just three.
To get to these three latter-named dining places, one passes the old road that veers off from the Maharlika Highway and heads straight into the heart of San Pablo. From SM San Pablo, you hang a left at an intersection and proceed down the old two-lane road through what I think is a barangay called San Roque, since there is a market/statuette of the saint by the road. This is a road where traffic is an almost daily occurrence, much more so these days because work crew from contractors of the DPWH are engaged in road widening — demolishing walls of private properties then installing huge cisterns underground before cementing the area, effectively adding a second lane on either side of the road. The project — so common all over the country — should result in a smoother flow of traffic because the road is now twice the size. But it doesn’t. Instead, the widened portion has become free parking space for vehicles — again a common sight all over the country.
All because we have never ever learned to engage in road widening while coordinating action with the power or telecoms companies that need to put up posts that hold electric or communications wires. Never ever. I’m turning into a senior citizen this year and year in and year out I have witnessed road widening projects everywhere that become useless – dangerous even – because there are posts in the middle of the newly-paved lanes the DPWH has created.
How hard is it to coordinate work?
I have to admit that for a long time I’ve had this morbid fear of one day slamming (knock on wood) into one of those posts on the highway in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, or in the San Roque area of San Pablo City. Am sure this has happened before, and this will happen again. Because the bright boys in government are never bright enough to insist on coordinated work to maximize the value of their efforts.
Maybe newly-elected Senator and former DPWH secretary Mark Villar should introduce a bill about this. Include a provision that will have the district engineer chained to the post he is unable to move – and maybe include the DPWH secretary for good measure!
Unless, of course, all these road widening programs are really meant to create parking spaces for the motoring public?
