Not an irony but tort

First and foremost let me, my lady Carmen and our children, Belynda (with Romar), Averell (with En-en), Byron (with Aimee), Beatriz and Charisse wish all of you a prosperous new year.

Webster defines an irony as an “incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result.” The incident I noticed last December 26, 2011, a Monday, would have been an irony.

Here is the story. The inhabitants of Baugo, a small sitio in Barangay Paril, planned, in the midst of their modesty, to hold a meaningful Christmas party. They drew from their meager resources and I could see the depth of their gratitude to receive our small contribution.

In the afternoon of that day, while Visayas and Mindanao were experiencing a sustained heavy rainfall, we drove up to Baugo. Upon reaching Sitio Agpasan in Binaliw, we noticed that a portion of the asphalt road had just suffered fresh damage. Certainly, it was not the effect of the rain.It looked to me that the damage resulted from the fall from the sky of a massive steel ball, the kind used by some companies to demolish old buildings. The depression on the surface was very evident and the cracks, oh! The only way they could be repaired would be to remove the particles, redo the foundation and apply a new coat of asphalt.

The kind and character of the damage was consistent in many parts of the stretch. Before we reached Barangay Mabini, I counted many and I mean many, portions of the freshly damaged road. In fact, along the way, a cementation of the road that was done, about a year ago, to restore a portion that slid, suffered so huge and dramatic a crack that it has become dangerous to use.

Giving way to our curiosity, we pulled over and tried to ask from people nearby what must have caused the damage. The first man we queried from said he did not see how it happened. But a group of young boys later claimed that heavy equipment passed by and left the trail of damage. Other helpful persons corroborated our young sources of information.

Then, not long after, as we continued our trip, we met two heavy equipment units, probably the ones referred to by the boys.The markings at the front of the vehicles indicated the name of the owners - a construction company. (I am keeping this name for our authorities.) Our further information revealed that they went upland to pour their cargo of pre-mixed cement.

Yes, a good part of the damaged road stretch was asphalted shortly before the 2010 elections. We saw how it was done, observed that the layer was thin and knew that the effort was obviously designed as a political gimmick. But, for light vehicles, like our old Volkswagen Beetle, the asphalting held.

It would have been an irony that the heavy equipment units of a company engaged in construction of roads would damage the road they were running on. But, it was not an irony.It was tort.

The city government spent tax money to asphalt the road.That expense is now laid to waste by the construction company. That firm had no right to inflict that kind of damage upon our road as to make our mountain areas extremely difficult to access. It is liable for the damage it has done. It cannot even put up the defense that the asphalt was thin and probably substandard because it if were so, it should have known that it was no match to the weight of its motorized heavy equipment.

In addition to our greetings at the opening line of this column, we wish that His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama acts on this tortuous conduct of the construction company.He must ask this firm to repair, within a determinable time, the damaged parts of the road and at least, restore it to its former condition. In the company’s failure, Mayor Rama, with authority by the City Council, has no other recourse but sue it. He will be doing it in the highest interest of the city and its taxpayers.