PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. inspected the soon-to-be opened Bucana Bridge in Davao City. Prominent personalities with him were Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon and, of course, the Chair of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Sec. Leo Magno.
We were not around, of course. However, conspicuously absent in the pictures posted on social media were officials of the local government of the city. We are certain that many among the local officials would have wanted to be present during the Presidential inspection. But most likely common sense dictates that they’d rather not be, or else…
Our take on their deliberate absence is that the act is more disrespectful than the one done by the people of Manay, Davao Oriental when the President visited the area after the disastrous earthquake devastated the municipality.
We could only imagine how our local officials feel if they visit villages run by people on the other side of the political fence who ignore their presence.
It is indeed very unfortunate that respect is relegated to the backburner due to the differences in political affiliation.
**********************************
Does the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) deputize men and women in areas with existing or non-existing projects like the ones on flood control subject for inspection or validation?
Yes, the ICI could have easily lightened its job if it deputized highly qualified persons coming from, say the academe, legitimate organizations of structural or civil engineers, and law enforcement groups like the police or the NBI.
We are asking the question because if there are ICI deputized investigators in Davao Region, we will urge those men or women to visit that concrete bridge that for the longest time we have been writing about in this space. We are referring to the unfinished bridge project that spans a deep creek separating barangays Catalunan Grande and Tacunan.
The concrete bridge is roughly 10-15 meters long, not including the approaches, yet until now the one on the Tacunan side has not been constructed. As far as we can remember, the short bridge was started shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seven years have passed and the project has not been completed. From knowledgeable sources we learned that the contractor of the bridge was already fully paid. But how come the span is not fully done?
Through this column we have been asking the DPWH what is happening to the project. We also suggested to the Davao City Council to have some of its members visit the location and from there initiate a probe, if only to surface the problem that prevented the bridge completion.
Apparently, the officials of the DPWH in the Davao Region or in the district that has jurisdiction of the project are not reading local papers and preferring instead seeing and reading social media posts.
Maybe, too, the DPWH people and the members of the local lawmaking body of Davao City have grown too callous that they may have been waiting for the existing one-lane steel bridge currently used to collapse and some lives lost before doing the needed action.
Meanwhile, herds of goats are enjoying their undisturbed nightly sleep on the span that has become their jump-off point before grazing the green pasture in the adjacent coconut farms.
Of course, there is certainty that aside from the contractor, several other people from concerned government agencies have already walked out of the banks with their pockets oozing with cash.
For now, we can say that we are not totally worried that the unfinished bridge project will become another of those “drained down to the canal of forgotten memories.”
Our friend and former media colleague, now the spokesperson of the DPWH, Dean Ortiz, may be able to find time to visit the project site so he could give a lowdown of its true state and proper interventions by concerned agencies be undertaken.
*******************************
Davao City’s First District Rep. Pulong Duterte officially rejected the invitation for him to appear before the Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) as a resource person on the ongoing probe on the anomaly ridden flood control and other infrastructure projects?
The reason, according to the vongressman, is that the ICI is only created by the President as “pure political propaganda.”
He further added that the probe body has “no jurisdiction – only agenda” over Congress. Congressman Polong also cited that the ICI is created by Executive Order No. 94, “therefore it is part of the Executive Branch, and therefore it cannot compel a sitting member of the House, citing the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers.”
Now who can question that reason of the Davao lawmaker? Nevertheless, those who worded the Executive Order are also persons with no simple legal minds. We are certain they have ready arguments to refute the citations made by the Davao lawmaker’s lawyers.
So there is something to wait for all those interested in the progress of the ICI investigation. Let us see.
-30-
