Duterte urged to discipline road contractors

MANILA, Philippines — Rep. Lito Atienza of party-list group Buhay urged President Duterte yesterday to discipline road contractors.

He said the President should issue an executive order (EO) “to ensure highly disciplined road works.”

“Surely if the Palace could issue an EO imposing stricter smoking ban guidelines, it could also come up with one enforcing harsher rules on road diggings,” he said.

To ease traffic jams due to road diggings, Atienza said all public works contractors should be charged escalating hourly fees so they would be compelled to finish their jobs right away.

“The bottlenecks created by these messy road diggings cost us billions of pesos in lost economic productivity. Manufacturing activities are being disrupted, deliveries are getting stalled, and people are unable to get to work on time,” he said.

There could be up two million road diggings nationwide every year, including those done by private firms supplying water, gas and electricity, the former Manila mayor said.

“Road excavation permit applicants should be billed rising hourly fees so they will be forced to complete their work without delay. They should also be required to pay additional charges if they choose to do their work on weekdays,” he added.

In March last year, government agencies outlined new guidelines that restricted road repairs and diggings only at night – between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. – to free up busy roads during the day.

The Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Transportation and the Metro Manila Development Authority also agreed to require all private contractors to use quick drying cement on road repairs to reduce curing to 24 hours.

“But these remedial measures have obviously failed. We still see daylight road diggings being carried out everywhere and open pits left abandoned in all places,” Atienza said.

He said there should be heavier penalties on contractors who do not complete their projects on time.