DPWH to spend P65 billion for national roads next year

By Helen Flores (The Philippine Star) Updated November 01, 2010

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will spend a big chunk of its P90.915-billion proposed budget for 2011 on the improvement of national roads, officials said yesterday.

Secretary Rogelio Singson said the DPWH would spend close to P65 billion of its 2011 budget for the improvement and development of national thoroughfares rather than the construction of local roads.

Singson said the Aquino administration has given priority to improve national roads.

“It’s just a matter of defining what your priorities are. Our (DPWH) budget (for road maintenance) will remain the same but the priority will be the national roads. We will not do any local roads for the meantime,” Singson said.

Singson said the previous administration had ordered the DPWH to focus on the construction of barangay and municipal roads, leaving a small budget for the maintenance of national roads.

Singson said the DPWH would now shift its attention to maintenance of national roads by spending more than half of its proposed P90.91-billion capital outlay budget next year.

He said the DPWH would implement total road upgrading, instead of just repairing damaged portions of the road to ensure utmost safety to motorists.

Singson said the stopgap repairs on damaged roads have actually weakened the country’s highways, increasing the risk of accidents and deaths.

Singson particularly cited the re-blocking made by the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on the damaged portions on some of the national highways that only worsened the road network because of poor or uneven quality.

“A concrete road has bars or rebars underneath that transfer load. Once you re-block, you have to cut all those bars but the contractors never returned those to connect the bars that should be connected. So therefore, the road will never be restored to same condition as before,” he pointed out.

Singson said other countries like Vietnam and Cambodia have better road quality and safer for travel compared to the Philippines.

The country has about 15,731 total kilometers of national arterial roads and some 14,168 kilometers of national secondary roads, all being maintained by DPWH.

Of the national arterial road, only 86 percent is paved and 27 percent of the paved sections need to be rehabilitated.

For the secondary roads, only 63 percent is paved and 25 percent of the paved sections need to be repaired.