Workers from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Metro Manila Development Authority, or MMDA has given the Department of Public Works and Highway’s first engineering district in Quezon City, the go-ahead to conduct road rehabilitation along Congressional Avenue and the thoroughfare’s extension, some sections of which have been damaged by passing trucks and other heavy vehicles.
District Engineer Roseller Tolentino relayed the “good news” to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Thursday and disclosed they would “start conducting the weekend road repairs shortly.”
“We intend to maximize the time given to us by the MMDA in doing our road repair activities” at the nearly five-kilometer national road, he said.
Tolentino furnished this paper a copy of the MMDA “road repair clearance,” which is valid from June 27 to Nov. 23, 2014.
The document was signed by lawyer Emerson Carlos, assistant general manager for operations, and Director Neomie Recio.
The DPWH official did not say why his office got the document more than three months after it was issued by the Makati City-based agency.
According to the MMDA clearance 14E-1869, the “permitted work” is the “proposed rehabilitation, upgrading and preventive maintenance of Congressional Avenue Ext. for the duration of 150 calendar days.”
Tolentino and Assistant District Engineer Edilberto Quiambao earlier noted that the quality of several national roads in their area of jurisdiction – like Congressional Avenue, Congressional Avenue Extension and Mindanao Ave. – has deteriorated.
The busy thoroughfares were among those designated as “truck routes” by a Malacañang-created inter-agency task force on traffic management, which included the MMDA and the Department of Transportation and Communications, they said.
Quiambao reported that their field personnel and motorists had observed a lot of cracks on Congressional Avenue Extension.
“Cracks have appeared on the heavily-stressed roads. They were caused mainly by passing trucks and other heavy vehicles,” he said.
Tolentino has said they are “ready to conduct the much-needed road repairs” as the repair and maintenance of national roads and bridges are part of their mandate.
Meanwhile, the DPWH engineering district in Pasig City has yet to be issued a similar road clearance by the MMDA for the repair of the C-5 Service Road at the corner of Pasig Boulevard in Barangay (village) Bagong-Ilog.
District Engineer Roberto Nicolas told the Inquirer they were “determined to complete the unfinished road project in coordination with concerned agencies, including the MMDA.”
He and MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino tangled last week after the latter sued him in the Office of the Ombudsman for grave misconduct, abuse of authority and grave ignorance of the law.
“They just tore up the road,” the MMDA boss had said at that time, adding the DPWH-NCR office and the Pasig City government did not coordinate with his agency before conducting the road repair.
Nicolas appealed to Tolentino to let them carry out their “main tasks, our mandate at DPWH.”
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