FINALLY, the Davao City Council has created an Ad Hoc body to oversee efforts at helping resolve whatever bars that are hampering the completion of the Maa-C. P. Garcia Diversion Road flyover project.
For certain, Davaoeños are happy with this development. And it is everyone’s hope that the body will be able to facilitate the resolution of issues that have surfaced only recently when certain sectors in the city decided to make public their concern on the long overdue project in billboards erected on strategic locations within the unfinished project’s vicinity.
In relation to the issues, we cannot help but resurrect once more what we had been harping on in this space for years already.
We are referring to a bridge about 15 meters long spanning a creek that divides barangays Catalunan Grande in the first district and Tacunan in the third.
The bridge itself was completed some three years ago. But it cannot be used as the Tacujnan end of the span does not have the necessary approach. On its end at the Catalunan side, the approach road has already been provided. Unfortunately, however, it has not been connected to the main road.
Despite our repeated haranguing on this issue in our column, not a single reaction came from the most likely agencies of government ever came out. We had been calling the attention of the Department of Public Works and highways (DPWH) Region XI, and the City Engineer’s Office.
We are assuming that the bridge project could either be that of the national government, or that of the local government of Davao City. Also, our suspicion is that either the DPWH or the CEO, if one of these offices is implementing the project, may be facing the same road-right-of-way problem that is hampering its full completion and utilization.
But no, we did not get any reaction from the two agencies. Sometimes we already started suspecting that no one cares to read our column. Luckily, though, we got comments on some other issues. And the reactions did not only come from Davao City residents but from as far as the Visayas and the National Capital Region. We assume that the reactors read about the issues we tackled in our column through this newspaper’s online edition. But in the case of the unused Tacunan-Catalunan Grande Bridge, we have not gotten any, not even a whimper.
So, it is our take that the officials of the DPWH and the CEO may have started to develop calluses on their faces, or deafness and muteness are already creeping on their ears and mouth.
Anyhow, why cannot the newly created Ad Hoc body created to help settle issues on the Maa-C.P. Garcia Flyover project expand the coverage of its responsibility to include looking into the problem nagging the Catalunan Grande-Tacunan Bridge?
To make sure the members of the body can have a better appreciation of the issue, why cannot they find time to visit the place? It is only a little over a kilometer away from the house of First District Rep. Paolo Duterte.
Who knows they might discover? It might be one of those projects long-fully paid and reported completed but actually not.
Or, if it would not be too much, why cannot any auditor of Commission on Audit XI or the one stationed at the city government visit the project area? With such a visit, we might lose the idea that the auditors are only doing table auditing and looking into documents prepared by the contractor of the project.
O, this is one other “system” resorted to by corrupt public officials in cahoots with greedy contractors that leads to corruption in our country becoming “systemic.”
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One thing that we can boldly say as a major mistake the President made while delivering his 4th State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) was when he lambasted those officials, primarily members of Congress, for being largely responsible in the prevalence of corruption – big time at that.
His erroneous line was, “Mahiya naman kayo.” What would have been correct is, “Mahiya naman tayo.”
Why? Clearly, even if the President is not a party in the big-time money making ventures of concerned lawmakers and other officials, especially from the DPWH, he still cannot escape with clean hands and clear conscience.
Yes, with the implementation of hundreds of billions worth of projects that have become the milking cows of corrupt government officials, certainly the President cannot escape involvement under the doctrine of “Command Responsibility.”
Also, there is something he might have missed out in his scrutiny of his selection of who among his Cabinet Secretaries to be re-appointed after they tendered their courtesy resignation.
Now, it is clear to the public who the Cabinet Secretaries and other heads of offices’ resignation he should have accepted.
