HAS THE massive solar street lighting in Davao City, specifically in the first district, attained its primary objective, which is the reduction of the local government’s monthly electric bill?
We are asking this question as we have observed in our many visits to various parts of the city, including during nighttime, we noted that the sodium lamps installed by the city’s power provider are still brightly lighting side by side with the solar lamps.
In other words, the power provider still continues to bill Davao City for the consumption of the sodium lights.
Of course, if the main objective of the installation of more solar street lights that are on both sides of the road is to further make the city look attractive at night, then we are 100 percent in agreement with the attainment.
As to the other purpose of the installation, which is to minimize criminality in the city, maybe the police can provide the public with the needed figures so that a proper assessment can be made.
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If the public is to talk of corruption and related money-making schemes in government offices, the Land Transportation Office (LTO) is easily one of those. In fact, in several instances, we personally “oblige” because we feel it is more facilitative for the transaction and allows us less time at the said office to wait for our turn.
However, we have to admit that lately the agency’s office in Davao City made itself not just accessible to the people who intend to have business with the agency, but also found time to bring the office’s various services directly to the people themselves.
We are referring to the so-called Outreach program of the LTO that it launched some months back. Other than the usual license and registration renewal, the LTO also conducted seminars to both accomplished drivers and those still aspiring ones on the duties and responsibilities of those driving vehicles.
The LTO Davao’s personnel also serve applicants for a student driver’s permit. The office even brought, during its latest outreach activity in a third district barangay, some 31 kilometers from the city proper, a partner vehicle engine emission service provider.
In that edition of the LTO’s outreach project, the people’s response was massive. Those who came to avail of the services offered by the office were not only residents of the host barangay but also from neighboring villages.
If the LTO continues the outreach program, we are certain that it can very well provide the agency with the much-needed redemption of its name brought about by the undesirable activities of some of its personnel.
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We believe that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Region XI’s District Engineering Office in Davao City has a lot of explaining to do with the still unfinished concreting and expansion of the Magtuod-New Carmen-New Valencia relief road.
The project started even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2019. But it is now 2025 or roughly seven looooong years. Still, the work is not yet fully done. In fact, the same road has already been hit by several landslides, including stretches that were supposedly newly expanded.
Many of our friends, and we, too, have been asking what is delaying the contractor from finishing the project. The entire project cost is several hundreds of millions of pesos.
Of course, the contractor happens to be a personal acquaintance of ours. The President of the firm is a former high-ranking official of the Mindanao Business Council who once sought the support of the company we represent in a business organization in some of its board or general membership meetings.
It is also the same construction company that got the multi-million General Santos City Underpass project that has remained uncompleted for several years already.
Why is the DPWH intriguingly silent on this mediocre performance of its contractor? Is the budget of the Magtuod-New Carmen-New Valencia concreting and expansion project withheld? Or, is it “gone with the wind?”
Actually, the same road is our favorite route every time we come down to the city proper and go back to our rural residence. And in all the times we use the said road, we have observed that only a few men and hardly a unit of heavy equipment can be seen doing the work.
We do not know if officials of the DPWH in the region or district have ever passed by the route or gone there with the intention to inspect the progress of the road work.
It is our take that the particular project is worth the visit and assessment of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure.
