Council summons public works exec

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

THE city council has summoned the regional director of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) so he could shed light on the contentious right-of-way issues hounding its four-lane coastal road project.

Councilor Teodulfo Lao Jr. said DPWH director for northern Mindanao Virgilio Eduarte is expected to face the city council this afternoon, and explain why the 20-year old road project remains unfinished.

Specifically, the city council wants to know from Eduarte exactly what has been done so far about a reclamation area in Barangay Lapasan that has prevented the DPWH from constructing a section of the coastal road.

The coastal road, from barangays Gusa to Puntod, is part of the DPWH’s P4-billion diversion road project that was started in 1997. The plan is to link it to the diversion road from Barangay Bayabas, this city, to Barangay Igpit, Opol town in Misamis Oriental via the Puntod-Kauswagan bridge.

While the diversion road that cuts across barangays Bayabas, Kauswagan, Bulua, Iponan in Cagayan de Oro, and Barra in Opol town up to Barangay Igpit has been opened to vehicular traffic, the Gusa-Puntod section has remained unfinished to this day.

Lao, a member of the city council’s committee on roads and traffic management, said councilors want to hear from Eduarte himself why it was taking this long for the DPWH to proceed with the road construction that would cut across what used to be a foreshore in Lapasan until Barangay 33 chairman Conrad Lim expanded his property by way of reclamation.

“Unsay problema sa DPWH? Ngano nga dili pa nila makuha ang gi-reclaim  nga property nga naigo sa  road right-of-way?” asked Lao.

He said the coastal road project should be completed as soon as possible in order to decongest CM Recto Avenue and nearby areas that could no longer cope with the flow of vehicular traffic.

The problem was initially tackled during a meeting of the city council’s roads and traffic management committee chaired by Councilor Romeo Calizo.

During the meeting, fingers pointed to the Lapasan reclamation area as the cause of the coastal road construction project delay.

Lao said the problem highlighted during the committee meeting prompted him to ask the city council’s committee on laws and rules chaired by Councilor Ian Mark Nacaya to include the problem on the coastal road project as an item in the agenda of the local legislature today.