Strong Republic, terrible highway?

Our big bike group, the Easyriders Motorcycle Club, together with our bike brothers from the Recycle Motorcycle Club, (a convoy of 18 motorcycles with two back-up vehicles with trailers) have been on the road since Saturday for the 12th annual convention of the National Federation of Motorcycle Clubs of the Philippines, which will be held in Vigan and Laoag from April 28-30. Big bikers from all over the country are expected to attend this annual convention, which is fast becoming a major domestic tourism activity. But we’re all here to ride with our friends.

By now, you’d think that we’ve gotten bored riding around in the beautiful Philippine countryside. Not so. We’ve chosen a route that none in our group has taken before. It’s officially called the Strong Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH), a pet project of President Arroyo who wanted to link islands in the Visayas to the new route via Mindoro and we decided it’s about time to check it out.

From Cebu City, we passed through the Transcentral Highway cutting across the island of Cebu to Toledo City where we took Lite Shipping’s M/V Danilo, a roll-on, roll-off ferry for an hour-and-a-half crossing through the Tañon Strait to San Carlos City. From San Carlos City, we took the new short cut across Negros Island, via the town of Salvador Benedicto, which is only 80 kilometers to Bacolod City via a very scenic route.

This is Negros Occidental’s equivalent of Cebu’s Transcentral Highway where the view of Mt. Canlaon is stunning, complete with their mini version of Bohol’s Chocolate Hills and the Banaue Rice Terraces rolled into one trip. You can also see the spectacular Malatan-og Falls in the middle of a rainforest, which is now becoming Negros’ must-see tourist destination.

Two years ago, I passed this way and they already had a couple of irritating one-kilometer long unpaved roads, which give you the idea that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) somehow almost always never complete their work. Two years later, the roads are still unpaved and please don’t tell us that they ran out of money, that’s an old song!

Bacolod was merely a stopover because we went straight to the pier to board a Montenegro Lines roll-on, roll-off M/V Sophia for the two-hour trip to Iloilo City. We stayed overnight at the new Iloilo Grand Hotel in downtown Iloilo. Since I’m rarely in Iloilo, the Panay chapter of the Save our Languages through Federalism (Solfed) led by Pototan Councilor Paolo Guanco, Willie Andrew Branum, Kim Parreñas and Kristine Palu-ay dropped by the hotel for an impromptu dialogue. This Solfed chapter is one of the most active in Panay because they’re so passionate in their desire to preserve, not only the Ilonggo language, but Karay-a or Aklanon as well. It was a time to compare notes on preserving our languages and culture.

On Sunday, we rode off to Kalibo in Aklan, some 200 kilometers from Iloilo. After the town of Passi, which is halfway to Kalibo, we experienced one of the worst roads in Panay Island, which once more tells you that there is something terribly wrong with the construction methods of the DPWH, not just in Cebu but throughout the entire country as well! Should we start calling it a Strong Republic, terrible highway? Why not?

We stayed overnight in Kalibo and not in Boracay because the hotels there do not slap you with tourist rates. It would have been nice to stay in Boracay, but not at this time since as we were just passing through to Caticlan (66 kilometers from Kalibo) to take the Starlite Ferry trip to Roxas, Mindoro. We arrived at the Port of Dangay in Roxas, and we are now a mere 126 kilometers to the Port of Calapan.

Enroute to Calapan, as we passed through the town of Bongabong, we encountered an accident when our back-up vehicle, driven by Virgilio Hisoler, was struck by a crazed driver who was trying to overtake him. Since we were ahead of the group, we stopped and returned to the accident site and I immediately recognized the white Caucasian who, just a few minutes before the accident, was swerving to the left and right like a drunk. I finally overtook him and put my bike in front of his beat-up pickup-with-no-name to slow him down and let my bike buddies pass through safely. When I thought things were clear, I speeded up and left them behind only to find out later that when our back-up vehicle overtook him, he tried to overtake him again and ran him off the road.

True enough, the man was drunk! Call it a coincidence that the police chief of Bongabong, Inspector Arturo Divino was on patrol and got into the accident scene. We found out that the driver was a Canadian from Ontario named Middlerook C. Lavern, a burly man who drove his vehicle without even a shirt on his back! Realizing that her husband was muttering nonsense, his Pinay wife took the cudgels for him, accusing our driver of being at fault in the usual foul language.

Being the former head of Cebu’s Traffic Management, I told the attending police that it was wrong to talk to the wife, as she was not the operator of the vehicle. Unfortunately, they had to talk to the wife because the husband was unintelligeble. It was then that we learned that the vehicle’s registration was expired. Therefore, there no insurance and therefore it was an impoundable offense.

Inspector Divino assured us that the Canadian would pay for the damage on our vehicle. One of our friends took his photo, which the Canadian vehemently resented until someone asked him if he was hiding from Canadian authorities. Who knows? The Philippines never gets the quality foreigners to come here. They’re usually the bad ones who get in here.

Wherever we ride, our fellow Filipinos always show a smiling face, wave at our convoy and cheer us on. But our uneventful ride was marred by an accident with a foreigner who knows only too well that he could never drive drunk in his own country in Canada.

I have always believed that whenever Filipinos go abroad, they acquire the culture of that country. No sir, not in the case of Mr. Lavern and his Pinay wife, he has acquired the ugly driving habits of Filipinos, as we don’t have any laws against drunk driving. I hope my good friend, Canadian Ambassador Peter Sutherland, who always reads The Star would check out his fellow Canadian. Who knows, they might be looking for this fellow!

Upon arrival at the Port of Batangas from Calapan, we were greeted by a short 20-meter unpaved stretch outside the port, another reminder of how inefficient DPWH is everywhere we go!

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in the Freeman can also be accessed through The STAR website at http://www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show "Straight from the Sky" every Monday in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable at 8 p.m.