Right-of-way woes delay road project

A multimillion-peso ecotourism road now under construction will serve as Quezon province’s direct link to the international port in Batangas City, but right-of-way problems are blocking its completion.

“We might as well order the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to stop the road construction. They should pay us first,” said Antonio Barcelona Jr., a resident of Barangay Castañas in nearby Sariaya town.

Barcelona said the P1.3-billion road project had gobbled a portion of more than a hectare of rice field registered in his father’s name.

The 27-kilometer project, which includes five concrete bridges, starts at the capital city of Lucena and will connect the coastal areas of Quezon and Batangas, passing through Sariaya and Candelaria in Quezon and the San Juan and Lobo towns, and Batangas City in Batangas.

It is expected to boost the economic and tourism potentials of Sariaya, considered one of the major tourist destinations in Southern Luzon.

The road project was started in 2006 and was originally scheduled to cover 29 km and be completed late this year, but with Barcelona and other residents pressing for payment of their properties, the deadline has been moved to 2015.

In Barangay Manggalang-Kiling, a shack still stands in the middle of the proposed highway, while a bungalow, which is only a meter away from the cemented road, is still unmoved.

Spans of cemented road are often interrupted with patches of muddy trails in sections that have yet to be started.

Barcelona recalled that a couple of years ago, DPWH engineers had negotiated for the acquisition of their land for P100 per square meter. “But up to now, we have yet to receive payment,” he said.

Celestial Flancia, district engineer of the DPWH-2nd Engineering District, insisted that the department had the funds for payment.

“But the processing and evaluation by the DPWH regional road-right-of-way committee take time because of incomplete documents from landowners, agrarian disputes, free patent titles, and sometimes, the title is mortgaged with a bank,” Flancia explained in an interview on dzCT-FM radio station on Monday.

Quarry suspension

Besides, she said, quarry operations in Sariaya, the source of construction aggregates, had been suspended for three months last year and this had delayed road works. Jeremias Licas, DPWH project engineer, said contractors had to source their materials from Dolores town.

So far, only 53 percent of the project had been completed, Flancia said.

Several landowners have also complained of delay in payment. They said they had already talked with DPWH engineers in their Lucena office but were always told to return for follow-ups.

“If we knew beforehand that this will happen to us, we should have protested that road,” said one of them who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from the DPWH officials.

Some had already been paid in cash but said they received it from road contractors instead of DPWH representatives. “My son was wondering why the payment was not through a government-issued check but cash from the contractors when it was the DPWH who was supposed to pay,” one resident said.

Flancia maintained that all payments were made by the DPWH. “Maybe the landowners asked the contractors for help in the processing of their payment. But as far as our office is concerned, we have nothing to do with their arrangement,” she said.

Former Public Works Undersecretary Bonifacio Seguit conceptualized the ecotourism road as a segment of the 60-km highway to Batangas City way back in 1998 when he still headed the Quezon second engineering district.

The proposed coastal road traverses large tracts of fertile land planted to coconuts, rice and vegetables, and will pass along rows of beach resorts in Sariaya facing the Tayabas Bay.

Once it is finished, agricultural activities in the area will be enhanced to support higher food production. An increase in investments in the local tourism industry is also expected due to the opening up of fine-sand beaches.