WE passed by Ma-a toward San Rafael Village then to Marfori Heights in our way to downtown Davao City last Monday. While we were approaching the San Rafael Bridge we noticed there was a heavy traffic build-up at the San Rafael Village approach. It took us a longer period to just cross the bridge. As our vehicle was at the center portion of the newly widened span we noticed that one side of the San Rafael Village approached was already lined with fruit stands selling different kinds of fruits. We realized then and there that the traffic build-up was caused by several vehicles parking on the road side fronting the fruit stands where most of the vehicle occupants were buying fruits of their choice.
Indeed with such a situation, it is not surprising for vehicles using that particular lane of the bridge approach swerving towards the center of the road to avoid hitting the illegally parked cars card in front of the fruit stands.
We cannot really understand why this is happening to that particular side of the bridge approach. Traffic rules clearly prohibit any obstruction along any side of the road leading to a bridge for the simple reason that anything that will obstruct the view of motorists on either side of a bridge is a lurking danger.
Perhaps the Department of Public Works and Highways or the City Engineer’s Office should find time to send their people to validate this observation of ours. Where and how did those fruit stands get their permit to build their structures much more to run a business in that prohibited area?
Honestly, it is hard for us to believe that the owners of the fruit stands simply ignored seeking the necessary approval before they set up their structures and start to operate their businesses. These fruit dealers must have found some godfathers somewhere at City Hall or at the DPWH. Had they not worked on connections, we doubt if they’ll ever be able to muster the guts to openly violate any local laws or even national policies regarding the use of the sides on either of the bridge approach.
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We had a very sad experience on the night of last Sunday, October 10, 2021 and on almost the whole day of last Monday, October 11, 2021.We were actually hit with triple whammies during that period. Yes, on the night of Sunday we lost our water supply from DCWD and it lasted until Monday morning. As a consequence we could not wash the household and coffee/refreshment shop articles that were used up to dinner time on Sunday. Then came the power interruption which started early dawn of Monday, October 11, about 2 a.m. All the while we thought the power loss would only last up to 7 in the morning. But alas, we were informed by our grandson that power only came back at about 1:30 p.m. on Monday. So the interruption of electricity ran for almost 14 hours. And there is not even an update as to why. Our misfortune did not stop there. Even as the two unfortunate outages of utility services were raging, our communications facilities also conked out. With no power our internet and WiFi connections also went kaput. Our landline, supposedly on Fiber connection also collaborated with the utility services outages earlier mentioned. The telephone, the Internet, and the WiFi connections were all not operational. We could not even call Davao Light to inquire what is going on and when power was going to be restored. We could not also access the DCWD hotline to ask why the water supply is losing pressure in the nights for about two weeks now.
And finally, when we got to the periphery of the downtown area and had the signal to allow us to make calls, we finally reached the power utility. We were told that there was a major problem on the power lines leading to our rural residence “due to strong winds.” So what more can we do except to wait for a still indeterminate period of time to finish the repair work.
Meanwhile, our grandchildren who are all isolating themselves in our rural abode since the start of this year, were complaining that they have no way of participating in their on-line classes because of no power and absence of Internet connection. Two of these grandkids who were supposed to have examinations last Monday morning had to negotiate with their teachers later in the afternoon of last Monday that they be given a chance to take the test in another schedule. Good thing their requests were granted.
Worst of the triple whammies that hit us last Sunday night and Monday was our inability to write our column for this paper for its Tuesday issue. How could we when we could not encode in our powerless computer? We could not also send a column through e-mail since we were deprived of that medium courtesy of Davao Light.
The only lucky thing that came out of those dreadful days was when we arrived home from downtown Davao City our Koi fresh water fishes that we had been painstakingly raising over the last three years, were still alive after the 14 hour saga of an almost oxygenless water pond. But they were already gasping for air.
