Squatters hold up completion of C-5 Road—DPWH

MANILA, Philippines—Seven houses to 13 squatter families are blocking and delaying further the completion of a project involving a 300-meter portion of the north extension of Circumferential Road 5, or C-5, in Quezon City, according to the head of the Department of Public Works and Highways regional office in Metro Manila.

Reynaldo Tagudando, DPWH-National Capital Region director, said he was optimistic, however, that the road project would be completed and formally opened by the second week of March.

“Our right-of-way people are currently talking to the remaining 13 families. As soon as they agree to move elsewhere, the demolition of their illegal structures will immediately follow. Then, we will proceed with the construction of the project’s service road and drainage,” he told the Inquirer in an interview.

“Traffic flow in the area has improved after the completion of much of the road project,” Tagudando said, adding, “We expect traffic there to improve further with the 100-percent completion of the C-5 North Extension project.”

The DPWH had earlier convinced some 70 families blocking the road project to leave the area.

The department offers P60,000 to P100,000 per family to move elsewhere, according to Tagudando.

Sometime in late September, he disclosed that Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson was “already angry” because of the project delay.

“Our target was last June, before the opening of classes … Work on the portion onward Luzon Avenue stopped in early 2012,” he said.

The DPWH, he said, has received many complaints from motorists.

“They say they’re legitimate taxpayers so they do not deserve to suffer from traffic congestion in that major thoroughfare that’s supposedly built to decongest traffic in Metro Manila,” said Tagudando.

Tagudando said his office has repeatedly written the illegal settlers, appealing to them to leave as soon as possible because the government needed the property.

“They’re not your ordinary type of squatter families. I’m talking about people with jobs, as well as operators of small businesses like sari-sari stores and eateries, among others,” he said.

The North Extension of C-5 stretches from Katipunan Avenue to Tandang Sora Avenue, crossing Commonwealth Avenue through a flyover that ends at Luzon Avenue.

In her State of the Nation address in 2007, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cited the C-5 extension as one of the priority road projects of her administration.

She announced that the project would extend from Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City to Navotas City, while the C-5 South Extension would be from the South Luzon Expressway in Parañaque City to the Coastal Road in Las Piñas City.

The original C-5, 19.7 kilometers long, stretches from Parañaque to the North Luzon Expressway in Valenzuela City. It runs through the eastern portion of Metro Manila, effectively serving as a reliever road for Circumferential Road 4, better known as the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, or Edsa.

The major arteries of C-5 are Tandang Sora Avenue, Congressional Avenue, Luzon Avenue, Katipunan Avenue, Col. Boni Serrano Avenue, Eulogio Rodriguez Jr. Avenue, Carlos P. Garcia Avenue, and the Moonwalk Access Road.

It was conceptualized sometime in the late 1950s, when the then Highway 54 (now Edsa) was the main beltway connecting Caloocan City, Quezon City and the towns of Pasig, Mandaluyong and Makati.