We are calling the attention of either the City Engineer’s Office (CEO) or the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Davao City 3rd District Engineering Office.
A stretch of the Talandang-Calinan concrete road, specifically from sitio Canon to the location of a box factory in Biao Joaquin, could possibly be a foreboding to road accidents. And such accidents could be body maiming or even life snatching.
This we have noticed after the box plant, according to residents in that area, deepened by about a meter, and widened by also the same width an open drainage along its side of the road.
One side of the canal however, is right on the edge of the concrete pavement that was lately made even more prone to slip because of the installation of an 8- or 10-inch diameter water pipe by the Davao City Water District.
The canal is so wide, deep and open that should drivers of tricycles, 2-wheel motorbikes, or small, medium and heavy loader 4-wheel vehicles make even just a small miscalculation, they will find themselves and their driven vehicle diving into the embankment.
And why are we calling the attention of the two government agencies? This is simply because we believe that there are certain regulations as far as the digging of canals along barangay, city, or national roads. And the CEO or the DPWH is the regulations implementers.
While in certain ways the canal we are writing about may be a private initiative of the box factory, we think its construction should conform to the standard prescribed by government authorities.
But what are these loud whispers we have heard about? According to some residents in the area, the reason why the box plant management privately constructed the canal is for the factory to dispose of its waste water.
Unfortunately, according to our sources from the area, the canal will connect to a creek that cuts across a private property that is planted to cacao. It is owned by members of a Filipinos-Chinese family that run a string of malls and supermarkets.
Our sources added that the farm owners do not want the canal connected to the creek. They fear that the box plant’s waste water may not have been treated from inside the factory compound. Hence this could be toxic and could affect residents who may have to cross the creek and step on its water.
Of course the latter issue is another story. What many residents in the area and in the barangays whose people use the road for going to the market to sell their farm produce, buy their family needs, or go their work places in the city proper are more fearful of the possibility of vehicular accidents due to the deep and wide open canal.
We hope the people of the CEO and the district engineering office will take time out from their respective air-conditioned offices and visit the road section we are tackling in this column today.
Or, would they rather wait that people get maimed, mangled or dead due to accidents before they act?
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Finally the wish of many Davaoenos that we have also been pushing for so long is starting to see the light of dawn.
And we are referring to a local government-run City College of Davao. This dawning of a dream realization is seen after Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte-Carpio certified as urgent a proposed ordinance creating a city college. The mayor submitted her urgent proposal to the 19th Davao City Council. The latter’s education committee headed by educator councilor Pilar Braga is reported to be prioritizing the deliberation of the proposed measure by her council body.
In a press conference Thursday last week, the lady city chief executive said the construction of school structures, and the initial operating expenses will require a budget of P100 million. P50 million will be used for the buildings and procurement of educational facilities, The P35 million will be needed for salaries and wages of the teaching and non-teaching personnel. The remaining P15 million will be used for other expenses that still have something to do with the college’s operation.
Humbly though, Mayor Inday admitted that she is still finding for fund sources even as she said the college can start operation by August of this year.
We submit that indeed, for any large-funded projects like a city college is not one that is easy to come, and as always will be fraught with birth pains, the announcement of the mayor is one big welcome news to all Davaoenos.
And with a city that has an estimated revenue of closer to ten billion pesos this year it is very unlikely that the local government will have very hard time finding money for that particular very noble purpose.
Besides, if a small town that has barely crossed the third class category threshold like Cordova in Cebu has been operating its own college for years now, why cannot Davao City with its resources and a former mayor who is now President of the Philippines do it?
