Only 15.3% of Nueva Ecija roads are cemented — report

CABANATUAN CITY — Only a measly 15.3 percent of roads in landlocked Nueva Ecija are paved with concrete, underscoring the underdevelopment of Central Luzon’s biggest province.

This was the gist of a white paper, entitled "About Nueva Ecija," prepared by the provincial government and presented to newly elected local officials and provincial department heads at the opening of a two-day orientation seminar at the Holiday Inn in Clark Field, Pampanga last Tuesday.

The paper, presented by provincial planning and development officer Emi Ferrer, explained why the province has failed to attract investors who prefer to put their investments in areas with solid infrastructure.

The report, quoting statistics from the provincial engineering office, showed that only 15.3 percent of the province’s 5,542.58-kilometer network of national, provincial, municipal and barangay roads, are cemented; the rest are classified as gravel roads.

The data showed that the province has a total of 656 kilometers of national roads, 697.48 kilometers of provincial roads, 448.8 kilometers of municipal roads, and 3,740 kilometers of barangay roads.

Of the 656 kilometers of national roads, 458.6 kilometers are cemented, while 119.5 kilometers are asphalted and 77.6 kilometers are gravel.

Of the provincial roads spanning 697.48 kilometers, 322.13 kilometers are cemented, 47.1 kilometers asphalted, and 328.8 gravel.

Only 40.7 kilometers of the 448.8 kilometers of municipal roads are not cemented, while majority of the barangays have gravel roads.

Bad roads turn off potential investors who prefer areas with sound infrastructure, telecommunications, water supply and the like.

The province’s state of underdevelopment has been used as an election issue against the Josons who have ruled the province since the 60s.

Political observers and concerned citizens believe that the Josons’ decision to side with the opposition over the last half-century took its toll on the development of Nueva Ecija as Malacañang did not extend much help to the province.

Jailed former President Joseph Estrada would have provided a lot of help to the Josons in terms of infrastructure but he was ousted in the aftermath of EDSA 2.

Gov. Tomas Joson III, who was present during the orientation seminar attended by majority of the incoming mayors and vice mayors, said the province’s road networks are "too long" to be paved with concrete.

He said the province would need roughly P7 billion to be able to cement 1,000 kilometers of roads.

He admitted though that most barangay roads in the first congressional district, their bailiwick, are already cemented.

Joson sought the local chief executives’ help by allocating funds for the provincial government’s road-concreting program, especially for the Rizal-Bongabon Road.

He said funds for the graveling of roads are a waste of money, adding they should instead be spent on road-concreting.

Joson said he is exerting efforts to pave inter-town roads with concrete.

He said he has asked Lucio Uera, the re-elected mayor of Pantabangan town, to forge a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with California Energy International (CalEnergy) to use the P22 million it gives annually to the municipal government for road-concreting.

CalEnergy is the build-operate-transfer (BOT) proponent of the Casecnan Multipurpose Irrigation and Power Project (CMIPP) which involves the construction of a 26-kilometer underground tunnel that would divert irrigation water from the Casecnan and Taang Rivers in Nueva Vizcaya to the Pantabangan Dam.