Multi-million expense for nothing

To cover a deep-seated personal dismay over the inaction of the Office of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit, on a certain issue that I will dwell on later, let me start this column today in a most benign imagery.

More than a decade ago, I saw markings, colored bold red, that were painted along the long stretch of road starting at the back of the covered court of Barangay Talamban then Bacayan and ending in Barangay Pit-os. By the way, this artery is very important because this is the only link firstly to the bourgeoning number of residential subdivisions in the Talamban-Pit-os areas and secondly to the eight mountain villages from Binaliw thru Lusaran. Those markings consisted of signs written on walls of houses and concrete fences pointing to the sky upwards as there were painted with arrow heads pointed to the ground. I did not know what those markings were all about. Nobody acknowledged having made them and why.

I learned later though that it was a government project after all, with city engineers’ men painting those red marks as the initial step in the widening of the road. Those were markers indicating a much widened avenue. From the narrow two lane road, the project pointed to a four lane highway.

Some friends told me that to finance the road widening project, the city government appropriated some P156 million. I was unable to validate that information personally but Councilor Jerry Guardo, in a City Council session in July 2021 cited a specific account for RRW. Guardo bewailed that the city appropriation intended to pay for lots and improvements that might be affected by the project had almost been spent although the road widening, for whatever reason, was far from being completed.

True. After the markings were completed, front portions of some houses and buildings that were standing on the planned road width were torn down. There were structures that were totally demolished because they were entirely built on the proposed widened street. What I noticed though was that the demolition appeared selective. I mean that some buildings, even if standing on the supposed widened areas, were perceptively untouched while adjacent structures were obviously decimated.

Then, total stoppage of work ensued. The project seemed to have been abandoned. Guardo revealed that work ceased. If he was correct, the people’s money had been wasted and their dream of a hassle-free travel on a less congested road wrecked. Glaringly, the enthusiasm that once characterized the start of the project disappeared. Ningas kugon a term that the Internet describes as a pattern of behavior demonstrated by people who work on a project or challenge with zest and enthusiasm but never get to finish what they started set in. Believing that the officers in concerned government agencies miserably failed to do their job, I composed that August 2022 column of mine and entitled “This Delay Is Criminal Neglect.”

I thought I could rouse our constitutional watch dogs because in my then write-up, I suggested to the Office of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit to look into the probable accountability of the government officials responsible for this manifest wastage. Perhaps, these constitutional bodies did not then see the non-pursuit of the project as culpable waste and so, to my utter dismay, they lifted no finger. Their inaction somehow tolerated the criminal neglect that I earlier wrote about. Even then I nourish the hope that, this time, both Ombudsman and COA investigate why despite the reported multi-million expense, the Talamban-Pit-os road widening project has ostensibly been abandoned such that the street has remained narrow.