Take Me Home, Crumbling Roads

It was still dark. I got up early, at around 4 am. I had to hitch on my sister’s in-laws’ ride back to Bicol if I wanted to make it to work by Monday morning without getting late. The ride took off thankfully smoothly. In a short time, we were munching at Jollibee in Tiaong. Had the road trip kept up that way, I could have made it home around lunch time. I would have enough time to take a rest for me not to attend groggy in the seminar the next day. This expedition back home looked very promising. We entered Gumaca and then, we took a slow pace. Why did we have to take this route through downtown? We could not help but slow down because the road was busy with commercial hustle and bustle that seemed to be typical in this town on a Sunday. I was told that we couldn’t take the shorter route along the diversion road for some reason. We sped up as soon as we made it through that busy area. We slowed down again in traffic in another town in Quezon. It was not as bad as the first one.

Then, there we went. We entered the border. I was actually bracing myself for the traffic that they posted that would last around 5 to 7 hours. It was really an inconvenience, but not for the reason that I was expecting, but not really surprising for that matter. Not long after we entered Ragay, the pick-up truck would swivel side to side, and sharply dive down, only to quickly hop up again. The truck was now shaking more violently in ways that never happened on the roads in the towns we passed through. The potholes seem to be competing in depth and width. The experience was already comparable to a ride in an amusement park. These quakes had also become more frequent, lasting on extended sections of the highway.

This is ridiculous. To say that the road is bad is so much of an understatement. Perhaps, some potholes on a few meters of an isolated section of the highway would be tolerable. But the current conditions are intensely inexcusable. Not only Bicolanos, but including Manilenos, Visayans and Mindanaoans have to extend their patience with this reprehensible road because air fare is too expensive and there are no other routes by land. I remember that some 15 years ago, some efficient bus lines could make a trip from Manila to Naga in around six hours, implying better roads during that time. I personally could remember that the highway was not this bad. Of course, it was not perfect, but it was not this outrageous. I could also remember travelling up north to Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinan and further up to Baguio, and back to Manila, over smooth straight roads upon which buses could roll on without rumbling and shaking. I could remember the land travel to the port that goes to Boracay was also a smooth highway. With that thought, if our countrymen up north and down south had done a good job with building efficient highways, why could we not do it down here in southern Luzon? After so long a time, have not anyone from our local government officials and public works and highways officials benchmarked with their counterparts up in central Luzon and the northern regions? It would be as easy as applying their best practices from those provinces on our own roads.

There’s this common notion that the roads (not just Andaya Highway) are intentionally left neglected so that incumbent officials who are coincidentally candidates could have projects that would be advantageous for their campaign. Word on the streets is that people in position get money from these potholed paths. People seem to have just helplessly resigned their fates to that thought.

“According to…. from the repair and maintenance section of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Camarines Sur, they are working on fixing Andaya Highway.” This is from an article titled “LOOK: Defective highway in Camarines Sur unsafe for motorists” by Kimiko Sy, posted on rappler.com on September 5, 2017. I guess some statements stand the test of time.

This season, people would be going up and about. I don’t mean the hustle and bustle in malls, although that would also be true. People would be travelling from different provinces to Manila and vice versa and back again by buses and private land vehicles over these regrettable roads. That would be a larger volume of vehicles, larger than the already usually large volume that travelers would have to brace themselves with incomprehensible inconvenience because of these roads replete with potholes, with heavy traffic, with the risk of punctured tires, with the risk of stranded supplies, with the risk of major accidents on paved roads that are threatening to crumble. Andaya Highway is a tragedy waiting to happen.

““Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16