Following the visit of DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon, who inspected the damaged seawall in Virac on Nov. 17, 2025 and ordered the immediate repair and rehabilitation of infrastructures affected by STY Uwan, the DPWH Catanduanes District Engineering Office acted on the directive with alacrity.
That Monday after Dizon’s brief stay, OIC-District Engineer Vivian Biaco sent letters to certain contractors notifying them to rectify damage caused by the super typhoon on projects they had undertaken and completed.
The letters said that based on initial inspection made by a team of engineers, portions of the project implemented by the concerned contractor “were found to be adversely affected and now require immediate corrective action.”
DE Biaco advised that Sec. Dizon “has directed our office to notify your company, as the Contractor responsible for the implementation of the project, to undertake the necessary rectification without delay.”
The recipients were reminded that “all corrective activities must strictly adhere to the approved project specifications, engineering standards and applicable safety protocols.”
Nothing in the letter indicated that the DPWH, despite Dizon’s assurance that funding for the repair and rehab works in Catanduanes is available, would pay for the “rectification” works to be undertaken by the contractor.
*****
It is interesting to note that DE Biaco, in citing the Dizon directive, did not cite a legal basis for ordering the contractors to undertake the repair work of their completed projects.
The Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 9184, recently amended by RA 12009, provides in Section 62.2.1 from the time project construction commenced up to final acceptance, the contractor shall assume full responsibility for any damage or destruction of the works except those occasioned by force majeure.
Sec. 62.2.2 also provides the only instance during the one-year defects and liability period in which the contractor shall undertake repair works, at his own expense, of any damage to the infrastructure is when the contractor used materials of inferior quality during the construction of the project.
*****
Assuming the contractor adhered to approved project specifications and engineering standards in prosecuting the project, then there is no basis for asking the contractor to repair the damaged portion of his project as the flooding or storm surge brought by Uwan was a force majeure event, an unforeseeable and uncontrollable one.
Further, the DPWH would be put in a legal bind especially if it has already inspected the project years earlier and issued the Certificate of Final Acceptance, which certifies among others that no inferior materials were utilized during its construction.
If it conducts another inspection and finds evidence of any violation of project specifications and engineering standards, the DPWH engineers who signed the Certificate of Final Acceptance could face charges.
Hence, it would be doubtful to expect contractors to obey the DPWH order
*****
THE WIFE ON HER KNEES. Three men are at a bar, and two of the men are talking about the control they have over their wives, while the third remains silent.
After a while, the first two men turn to the third and ask, “What about you? What kind of control do you have over your wife?”
The third man turns to the first two and says, “Well, I’ll tell you, just the other day I had her on her knees.”
The first two men were dumbfounded.
“Wow! What happened next?” they asked.
The third man takes a healthy swig of his beer, sighs and mutters, “Then she started screaming, ‘Get out from under the bed and fight like a man!’”