Weighted options

LAST MONTH the Villa Leoncia Bridge along the Circumferential Road in Angeles City groaned and bended to the heavy volume of traffic that crossed it.
Quickly – and so correctly – pinpointed as the culprit were those overloaded quarry trucks coming from the laharlandia of Porac and going through MacArthur Highway to Metro Manila.
In September 2007, the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon (ADCL) wrote a letter to Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio raising concern over the accelerating degradation of Pampanga’s roads and bridges caused by overloaded cargo vehicles, principally quarry trucks.
In January 2008, the ADCL renewed its calls for the governor to do something about the overloaded quarry trucks.
In March 2008, rightfully distressed over a clear and present danger not only to infrastructures but moreso to the socio-economic ramifications arising from the state of roads and bridges in the province, the ADCL raised the alarm with a third letter to the governor.
In obvious exasperation over the apparent indifference and inaction of Panlilio, the face of ADCL – Rene Romero, who is also chair of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry – went to the press and advocated for a total ban on quarrying in Pampanga.
I, for one, thought Mister Rene went off his rockers with such a seemingly stupid proposition. But come to think of it, he was saner than many of us.
What the province gets from quarrying – still P1 million a day, Governor? – may not even compensate for the destruction these overloaded quarry trucks impact not only on our infrastructure but also in the province’s political well-being, so Mister Rene reasoned, citing the quarry issue as the root cause of the enmity between the governor on one hand and all the rest of the local government officials – save for the City of San Fernando’s Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez – on the other.
Still, no action from the governor.
I have this uncanny feeling that Panlilio looks at Mister Rene as the boy who cried wolf ever since their falling out over the development agenda Romero proposed which – if we believe the moles and cockroaches at the capitol – the governor quickly promised to put into action but as swiftly consigned to the bottom of the thick, thick files of broken promises.
It should be remembered that Mister Rene was among the first five persons who initially broached the then un-thought of idea of Panlilio running for governor. Why, Mister Rene himself was in the short list of probable gubernatorial candidates put up by the so-called civil society prior to the surfacing of Panlilio’s name.
Of course that is all murky water under the bridge now.
Now, could it be possible that the Villa Leoncia Bridge could not have been so damaged to uselessness had Panlilio heeded the concerns of the ADCL in their letters of September 2007, of January and March 2008?
Of course, that is even murkier water under the Villa Leoncia Bridge now – made operable with a Mabey Bridge atop it rushed by the Department of Public Works and Highways and quickly plastered with “Mabuhay and Maraming Salamat” tarpaulins of Mayor Blueboy Nepomuceno.
A most pressing matter now is for the governor – along with Nepomuceno – the DPWH, the Land Transportation Office and the police too to learn from the lessons of Leoncia Bridge and strictly implement the weight limits on those quarry and cargo trucks plying the roads of Pampanga.
For starters, portable weighbridges can be installed near the quarry sites to check at the very source the very root of the problem. The trucks disallowed and prevented from taking on the road if found overweight.
That splendid idea was broached by DPWH Region 3 Director Alfredo Tolentino in Monday’s infra committee hearing at the sangguniang panlalawigan. Tolentino said there was one available portable weighbridge that can be immediately installed.
With the income from quarry, the provincial government can very well procure more weighbridges to install in all major quarry sites. The law of recompense – The benefits derived paying for the harm done – in full observance here.
So, will the governor act on this proposal this time?
Lest the governor see the boy crying wolf again, I won’t say that the initial idea of a weighbridge at the quarry sites came from Mister Rene’s ADCL too. Ooops, me and my big mouth.