In another trailblazing move, Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia has asked the DPWH Cebu 5th District Engineering Office (DEO) to also fulfill its often forgotten obligation of concreting barangay roads and not just focus its funds and resources on national highways.
This was what Gov. Garcia told DPWH district engineer Florida Nuñez during a meeting at the Capitol on May 10, quoting RA 6763 that states that the “DPWH shall undertake the construction of concrete barangay roads / multipurpose pavements in all barangays throughout the country.”
The governor’s reminder to the DPWH official was actually a counter-proposal after the district engineer failed to gain the Capitol’s approval in the agency’s plans of converting at least five main roads in Camotes Islands from Provincial Road status into National Roads.
These are the Poro-Tudela Circumferential Road; Pilar Circumferential Road; San Francisco Circumferential Road; San Francisco Transcentral Road; and Poro-San Francico Link Road which have a total length of 112.96 kilometers.
Nuñez told the governor that the fifth DEO has the shortest length of national roads in all district offices in Cebu, since Camotes has no registered national road.
The governor, however, rejected the proposal since the Capitol has been busy at work in concreting all Provincial and Barangay Roads in Camotes, spending at least P1.5 billion since 2019 for road concreting works in the cluster of islands.
“What will it benefit us after we have spent hundreds of millions of pesos just so you can take over?” Gov. Garcia told the DPWH official. “I see no logic there,” she added.
Data from the Provincial Engineering Office showed that the Capitol has already concreted over 500 km in provincial roads and 225 km of barangay roads since 2019 when Gov. Garcia came back to office for her fourth term.
Once a road is converted into a national road, funding for its concreting will be sourced from the DPWH, with the agency now primarily in charge of its maintenance and other improvements.
The governor said the Capitol is “fully committed” to concrete all roads in Camotes, with funds for its implementation annually incorporated into the provincial budget.
She added that if DPWH will start concreting barangay roads in Cebu, the Capitol will help the agency so that they would not need to pay road-right-of-way fees to affected lot owners.
“Despite na yung aming proposal was not approved, it’s okay because the governor has a good reason for not approving our proposal, and we were able to learn a lot from the governor,” Nuñez told Sugbo News.
Deputy Speaker and fifth district Congressman Duke Frasco, who was also present during the meeting, could not help but admire the governor’s wise judgment.
“They were coming with a proposal, but the governor gave them a better proposal,” Cong. Frasco said during the meeting, which was also attended by fifth district Board Members Red Duterte and Mike Villamor. | IPA