Can the Mayor help Agsungot?

Few months ago when the sky was cloudless and the land was parched by the dry spell, we traveled deep into our mountain barangays. The idea was very simple. We wanted to escape from the scorching heat in the city, breathe fresh mountain air and savor whatever greenery that was left surviving against the blistering sun.

The trip however, did not turn as pleasant as we imagined. While we jumped into our old Volkswagen Beetle, thinking that it never failed us in previous joy rides, it just could not be driven as fast as we wanted. Oh yes, up there in the mountains, the atmosphere was comparably cooler, but because the car had to literally crawl, we felt like placed inside a blazing oven.

The road condition was terribly bad especially in Barangay Agsungot. Summer was then approaching. It was not mud or muck that made our trip almost unbearable.  It took us a long time and abundant care to avoid the deep potholes and the jagged rocks that were strewn along. We all were shocked by the state of disrepair of that stretch of the road and shuddered at the thought that it would have been a lot worse had we taken the trip in a rainy season.

I wrote in this column that sad experience. In trying to be accurate, I then described that the woeful road condition was peculiar to Barangay Agsungot. The overall scene was difficult to configure. One fact was that the city government was working on the roads in the mountain barangays. Yet, to the observant eye however, there was something wrong noticeable in the programming of the projects. There were people digging the canals and heavy equipment grading and concreting the road in Binaliw as there were in Cambinocot and Paril, but no work was being undertaken in Barangay Agsungot. To those who are unfamiliar with these places, the village next to Binaliw is Agsungot.  So, in that trip, we asked why was Agsungot not touched?

In our earlier article, we mentioned that a party list representative is a native of Agsungot. Hon. Pastor Alcover does not represent a particular district as a congressman. His constituencies are the democrats scattered all over the country. His pork barrel, to be fair, is supposed to be spread all over the country where his marginalized constituents reside. But, Agsungot should also constitute one such constituency. If charity were to begin at home, he could have spared a part of his pork barrel to repair the road of his own barangay.

Yesterday, we went again to the mountains and followed the route we traveled few months go. With the rains that poured lately, yesterday’s trip was on a different climate, so to speak. To attain some parity, however, we took again our Beetle. Really, before we rolled on, I hoped that the road in Barangay Agsungot was attended to by party-list Cong. Alcover.

As we approached Binaliw, work gangs were busy. They chopped off a part of a hill to widen the road, placed retaining walls in areas prone to slides and went on feverishly concreting the road.

But all the activity took place in Binaliw. There was none in Barangay Agsungot. The recent rains, I am sure, worsened the bad road condition in that barangay. The mud and muck I spoke above were there. I had the feeling that the party list congressman must not have visited his home in a long while. Hon. Alcover cannot be proud to claim Agsungot as his native barangay for the road condition there could only be taken to mean that he is not mindful of the needs of his own people right in his own backyard.

Because the party list representative cannot be relied upon to lend help to his own barangay, I hope that the city administration of His Honor, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama can do something positive.