DPWH awaits police OK to resume work on road

DAGUPAN CITY — A clash in July between police officers and communist rebels had suspended work on the Pangasinan-Nueva Vizcaya Road, but the government said the second major road line linking the Ilocos and Cagayan Valley regions would open to vehicular traffic this year.

Only six kilometers of the 22-km road line required widening to serve as a two-lane road, said Emmanuel Diaz, assistant Ilocos regional director of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) on Wednesday.

“We have punched through the whole Pangasinan segment and motorcycles can now pass through,” Diaz said.

The road construction was suspended on July 28 when a clash between the police and members of the New People’s Army took place near the area, where a police officer was killed and another one was wounded.

“The Philippine National Police advised us to pull out the contractors for their safety. We are just waiting for PNP to give us the go-signal to resume work,” Diaz said.

The P1-billion project, which began construction in 2015, converted the Villa Verde Trail into a two-lane highway that would connect to the already paved road in Nueva Vizcaya province.

The trail crosses the Caraballo Mountains from Barangay Sta. Maria East in San Nicolas town to Barangay Imugan in Sta. Fe, Nueva Vizcaya.

When completed, Diaz said, the road would reduce travel time from Pangasinan to Cagayan Valley provinces by about one and half hours.

The only road now linking the Ilocos and Cagayan Valley regions is the Maharlika Highway, which starts from Laoag City in Ilocos Norte province and cuts through Cagayan Valley provinces before leading south to Central Luzon.

At present, residents in the upland village of Malico in San Nicolas spend four hours to travel to the town center.

This is because the trip takes a circuitous route passing through Santa Fe town in Nueva Vizcaya, and San Jose City and Lupao town in Nueva Ecija province. The route then cuts through the towns of Umingan, San Quintin and Tayug in Pangasinan before reaching San Nicolas.

Diaz said concreting, which started in March, would be completed by 2019, but vehicles could pass through the road once the remaining 6-km stretch had been widened. —Gabriel Cardinoza