Supreme Court stops Quezon City road-widening project

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court stopped the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) yesterday from widening the C-5 Road in Barangay Old Balara, Quezon City as part of a project to link the South and North Luzon expressways.

In a resolution signed by Chief Justice Reynato Puno, the SC ordered the DPWH and the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage Authority, respondents in the case, to submit their comments before the hearing on Monday.

In his petition, Barangay Chairman Beda Torrecampo said the road-widening project should not pass through Old Balara because underneath the barangay are three main aqueducts conveying water from La Mesa Dam to the Balara treatment plants.

“The constant indiscriminate usage of the proposed road project with heavy trucks passing over it every now and then might cause damage to said aqueducts and disrupt water supply to all Metro Manila residents,” read the petition.

Torrecampo said MWSS Administrator Diosdado Jose Allado admitted in his recommendation to Malacañang on the project last June 20 that “the integrity of the pipes underneath will be compromised in cases of heavy loadings.”

Torrecampo said the alternate route for the road project would affect a fewer number of residents.

“Proclamation 1375 of President Arroyo dated Sept. 25, 2007, which clearly refers to the same C-5 extension project about to be implemented by DPWH over the properties of MWSS, provides for certain parcels of land in UP Campus in Diliman, Quezon City to be used as an access highway,” read the petition.

However, DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. advised residents of Barangay Old Balara against opposing the project

“Why fight this project when you are not going to be affected by it?” he said. “The only ones affected are the rich who play at (the Capitol Hills Golf and Country Club Inc.).”

The road project would not hit the aqueducts and main water pipes under the Hole No. 6 of Capitol Golf because they are buried 60 meters underground, Ebdane said.

He also said the lot that will be covered in the project still belongs to the MWSS and Capitol Golf has not been paying MWSS for the use of the property.

Ebdane said the alternate route means an additional P600 million for the destruction and rebuilding of two buildings in UP, the relocation of 650 squatter families and payment of roads right of way.