The members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan had officials of the DPWH Catanduanes District Engineering Office squirming in their seats last week during the provincial board’s regular session.
PBM Josevan Balidoy, who asked that District Engineer Denis Cagomoc and some key officials be invited to the session for questioning, roasted them on the issue of paved roads in good condition being subjected to reblocking while dilapidated ones along the national highway especially between Viga and San Miguel are being neglected.
The problem, they claimed, is that they are not the ones who prioritize the submitted road sections for funding as they only submit the list to the central office for analysis by a software or program called HDM-4.
Their maintenance fund for 2024 is so meager that they cannot even hire one laborer for every kilometer of the 315-km circumferential road network, the DPWH officials alleged.
Actually, according to insiders, the Catanduanes DEO is allocated the amount of P12 million per quarter but the maintenance section was able to use up only a third of the allocation.
In this case, budget guidelines state, the same amount will be granted to the local DEO, no more, no less, as it is unable to utilize the entire amount anyway.
So what will DE Cagomoc and company do when the typhoon season comes and unleashes landslides, erodes road embankments and washes away bridges and spillways?
It is for this lack of urgency, really negligence, that the section head has been replaced although he is said to be identified with the political rivals of the real power at DPWH Catanduanes.
At one point, DE Cagomoc had a surprising reply to PBM Jan Ferdinand Alberto’s questioning his office’s lack of capability to implement infra projects, considering that majority of projects in Catanduanes are being implemented by the regional office.
The district engineer from Samar insisted that he did not know that the projects will be implemented by the DPWH regional office.
“We have the capability,” Cagomoc said to an incredulous audience. “Hindi ko maintindihan kung bakit ganun. We are just following orders. Sana dito na lang na-implement.”
Forget his incredible answer.
What stands out is his admission that they are just following orders.
From whom?
Nobody in the august body bothered to ask DE Cagomoc, most likely because they, like most Catandunganons, know who are (not is) the real bosses at DPWH Catanduanes.
Past congress representatives generally left the issue of bidding out and implementing infra projects here to the district engineer and the BAC, as long as they know who the “taker” of the project is.
Previous solons also rarely tinkered with the organizational set-up at the DEO, although a few DEs and assistant DEs were transferred to other postings after a call to the regional director.
That time is not history.
Like in the rest of the country, most, if not all, of the DPWH DEOs answer only to one real power, the ones who hold the purse and then skim from it.
Out of legislative courtesy, our honorable board members could not just acknowledge the presence of the elephants in Cagomoc’s office during last week’s session.