Driving in holey land

I ONCE heard a nasty rumor about how

the government handles the

construction and the maintenance of

our roads. According to the story--and I pray it really is just a

story--road construction projects, after being opened to

interested contractors, are secured not by the lowest bidder but

by the company which has the lousiest reputation for doing the

job. Simply put, the more inferior the contractor's work is, the

better its chances of landing the project. Of course, the more

road constructions are made, the more opportunities for some

government officials to pocket our taxes. Which is why, the

scuttlebutt continues, our roads have a lifespan of only six

months on the average. If you don't notice how even the

gentlest of rainshowers succeed in perforating our asphalted

pathways, you were probably raised on the moon.

If you were driving around last week when two typhoons

consecutively vented their ire both on our highways and

sidestreets, you witnessed how our roads were dotted with

enough holes to scare even Tiger Woods. If motoring were an

equation, we'd easily deduce that downpours are directly

proportional to potholes and traffic jams.

It's old news--this rain-equals-rut thing. As average motorists,

we want answers. If shabbily constructed roads are a ploy of

the government to convince us it needs the money it will raise

through the terrifying Road Users Tax, then heaven save us

from this administration. Let's try to look for the answers then.

We called up the Department of Public Works and Highways,

which we felt had a lot of explaining to do. We dialed

DPWH-NCR Regional Director Salvador A. Pleyto. Out of the

office. Assistant Director Remy Deang. In a meeting. DPWH

Urban Road Project Office Director Danilo Trajano. Field

inspection.

The DPWH is responsible for 498 national roads within the

National Capital Region. Your small sidestreets are,

unfortunately, left to the care of your local government. So don't

bother the department if the narrow artery around your block

looks as if it was rummaged by greedy miners. Go to your mayor

instead. Tell him you'll rip his countless billboards and use

these to cover the potholes in your area if he doesn't do

anything about them.

Finally, we got a hold of DPWH-NCR Chief Maintenance

Engineer Anatalio Atienza, presumably the group's

designated shield against prying journalists. Wasting no time,

he immediately gave us an update of the present road

conditions in the aftermath of the double tempests. ''The two

typhoons last week damaged 36,045.91 square meters--or 0.28

percent--of the entire 12.7-million square meters of the national

roads in the region," he said.

''Really?'' I thought to myself, ''The damage looks like a hundred

percent.''

''Right now, we have already patched 3,015.35 square meters or

8.37 percent of the damaged portions,'' he continued. ''The total

cost of repair for all this is P13.7 million. Our target date of

completion is the 25th of this month.''

If the government is constantly spending this much to

rehabilitate roads, why don't they just make them really, really

durable in the first place? ''The damages to the roads are

inevitable. Too much water really hastens the deterioration of

the asphalt. So we need to improve our drainage system. Also,

big trailers take too much toll on these roads, too,'' Atienza

explained. ''Besides, many of our roads-like Edsa and

España--have already exceeded their 20-year lifespan.''

Easy with those raised eyebrows.

Engineer Atienza revealed that a P6.48-million fund for the

rehabilitation of national roads had been approved for release

by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Japan

Bank for International Cooperation. The rehabilitation program

is scheduled to commence in 2001.

Anyway, since most Filipinos are really starting to warm up to

the game of golf, our potholes might just help us produce a

future US Open Champion.