Agusan del Sur highway to get P5B for repairs

A passenger bus is shown in this photo taken on Saturday making a stop along a damaged section of the Daang Maharlika Highway in Bunawan, one of the towns in Agusan del Sur between Trento and Sibagat whose roads are in bad need of repair. PHOTO FROM DIOSEN ALEJANDRO FACEBOOK

SAN FRANCISCO, AGUSAN DEL SUR—Motorists and commuters who endured the bad roads along the Agusan del Sur towns of Trento to Sibagat can now heave a sigh of relief: The government has allocated P5 billion to repair of the 180-kilometer stretch of the Daang Maharlika Highway connecting the two municipalities in this province.

Rep. Romeo Momo of the adjoining Surigao del Sur province said the rehabilitation of the badly damaged road would start next year once the funds were released.

The sorry state of the highway segment has long been a subject of complaints from commuters and motorists but Gov. Santiago Cane Jr. said they could not do anything about it since the highway is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

Momo, a former DPWH undersecretary, said he had advised DPWH officials to create a special program to address the deteriorating road conditions along the stretch from San Francisco to Trento.

According to Momo, repair efforts for this section of the highway will align with a proposed multibillion-peso loan project from the Asian Development Bank that aims to expand the Agusan-Davao Daang Maharlika Highway, adding two more lanes on each side. This project, however, is still in its planning stages.

Engineer Ben Alden Serna, the DPWH District II chief, said the cut of their allocation for road repairs, from P60 million to only P20 million last year, had affected their maintenance works on the national highway.

Momo also attributed the deterioration of the road to fault lines affecting certain portions of the highway and the overloading of 10-wheeler trucks.

He said cracks had been noted in some parts of the road after earthquakes or storms, but the damage had been more pronounced on the right lane heading north due to the overloaded trucks transporting farmed logs. INQ

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