Singson says ancestral homes won’t be touched

A BACKHOE starts destroying portions of Maharlika Highway in a village in Sariaya town, Quezon province, to pave the way for a road-expansion project. DELFIN T. MALLARI JR./INQUIRER SOUTHERN LUZON

LUCENA CITY, Philippines—Ancestral homes in Sariaya town, Quezon province, will be protected from any road project of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), judging from a statement made by Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson.

“We have to preserve these historic sites and structures for the young generation to learn from our past,” Singson said in a statement posted on the DWPH website on Tuesday.

The statement said Singson’s directive was prompted by concerns raised by the Sariaya Heritage Council (SHC), which is protesting a road-widening project that would damage at least two ancestral houses.

Singson, in his directive, said preserving historical sites and structures should be incorporated into the designs or feasibility studies of road projects to avoid delays and changes.

Citing DPWH Department Order No. 243, dated

Nov. 26, 1991, Singson reminded all DPWH officials to closely coordinate with the National Historical Institute, the National Museum and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts in the identification of historical landmarks to avoid damage to these during road construction.

In 2012, Dr. Maria Serena Diokno, chair of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines,  asked the DPWH to spare two century-old ancestral houses in another controversial road-widening project in Cebu City.

But Huillio Belleza, DPWH director in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), insisted that there was no planned road-widening project in the area where SHC feared that ancestral homes would be destroyed in Sariaya.