Authorities guard Bulacan highways vs overloaded trucks
WEIGH IN | In this photo taken on March 22, 2023, a truck full of goods slows down as it passes through a weighbridge station in this section of MacArthur Highway in Tabang, Guiguinto, Bulacan, to ensure it does not violate the weight limit set by the government. (Photo by CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE / Inquirer Central Luzon)
GUIGUINTO, Bulacan, Philippines — The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Land Transportation Office (LTO), supported by local governments, have intensified their round-the-clock operations against overloaded trucks along Bulacan province’s major highways.
Henry Alcantara, head of the DPWH Bulacan First District Engineering Office, told the Inquirer on Sunday that he had fielded more teams for the 24/7 anti-overloading operations in this town and the Philippine Arena weighbridge stations in Bocaue, both along MacArthur Highway, to restrengthen the protection of the province’s main highways that had been damaged by overloaded trucks, earning Bulacan the monicker “lubakan” (potholes).
LTO teams, together with traffic enforcers and village officials in Guiguinto and Bocaue, join the DPWH teams in guarding the highway at night, when most of these overloaded trucks sneak through Bulacan’s roads.
In October last year, Gov. Daniel Fernando sought the agencies’ more active efforts in helping to protect the province’s main thoroughfares from damage caused by overloaded trucks.
Alcantara said his office has been guarding the weighbridges for years but they do not have police power against the violators and can only reprimand the drivers caught using MacArthur Highway with overloaded trucks.
But he said, because of Fernando’s orders, the LTO and the DPWH had been protecting Bulacan’s MacArthur Highway.
Metro Manila-bound trucks loaded with bags of rice, feeds, mineral products like marble or limestone, and gravel and sand from San Miguel town and provinces in northern and central Luzon have been using MacArthur Highway to avoid North Luzon Expressway, where the anti-overloading law (Republic Act No. 8794) is strictly implemented.
Violators
Volumes of these trucks pass along MacArthur Highway even beyond the enforced truck ban hours between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. and between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays, except on Sundays and holidays.
Pelagio dela Cruz, weighbridge supervisor of the DPWH first engineering district that oversees the operations in Tabang and Bocaue weigh stations, had earlier told the Inquirer in a phone interview that from January to March 31 this year, LTO personnel manning the weigh stations had apprehended and issued tickets to 900 violators.
Arnel Abrera Jr., the LTO officer assigned at the Tabang weighbridge station, said that since RA 8794 was strictly enforced in Bulacan in November last year, about half of the 60 to 70 vehicles they weighed daily had exceeded the 13.5 metric tons per axle limit allowed by law.
Drivers of the trucks that violated the weight limit were required to surrender their licenses, which they could only redeem at the LTO main office in Quezon City, and to pay fines, said Michael Manalili, the LTO ticketing officer in Tabang.
Only the trucks from Pampanga have met the weight limit, said Abrera.
Pampanga Gov. Dennis Pineda, in August last year, ordered truckers and haulers in his province to cut the sidings of the vehicles to regulate the loading capacity of the trucks.
