Is the Talamban-Pit-Os road abandoned?

The book “Public Philosophy” may have been written by Walter Lippmann almost 70 years ago, but still it can be used to understand the philosophy of events taking place in the present. The principles he espoused in his work continue to be relevant today notwithstanding the passage of about three generations. We just need to be observant, especially on how government functions and in the way our leaders behave in order for us to discern the scholarship of Lippmann’s thoughts.

Honestly, I guided my students in Legal Philosophy to make this book a reference in term papers I required of them during my first year as a faculty of a Law school some 45 years past. How time flies. When I was dusting my library yesterday, I saw this Lippmann paperback, its edge delicately browned by age. In my attempt to recall the line of his thinking, the Talamban-Pit-os road widening project as an episode of governance somehow came back to my mind.

I have already written a few times in this column about the fact that there was a project to widen the road from Barangay Talamban to Pit-os, here in Cebu City. Is this project still ongoing with a possibility of completion? Or has it been completely abandoned? I ask these questions because about two decades ago, we began to see an increasing volume of traffic between these two points.

People from the mountain barangays of Adlawon, Guba, Pulangbato, Lusaran, Cambinocot, Paril, Mabini, Agsungot, and Binaliw then preferred to come to the city through the Pit-os-Talamban artery. They still do in exponentially bigger numbers. Then, they complained about the narrow stretch of road to be increasingly unable to handle the ever-burgeoning traffic volume. The Lippmann discussion of public issues like addressing traffic problems being overextended before any action is formulated dawned on me as if he just recently wrote his book. After so much fuss over a long period of time, government finally approved to widen this funnel of a road starting from the rear portion of the Talamban Sports Complex up to the Pit-os Barangay Hall.

If my memory serves me right, I remember an allocation for this particular infrastructure program of ?156 million in 2010 yet. Right, the project was launched about 14 years ago. Soon after the supposed commencement of the work, signs in glaring red color were written on buildings and houses that were going to be affected. In fact, some homeowners were paid already and volunteered to tear down their own structures. There were demolitions done and I assumed that the owners were compensated. I saw new concrete fences built few meters set back from old ones indicating that such old fences would be torn down to give way to a wider road.

The excitement in the initial stage of the project implementation did not last long. It fazed quickly with the overbearing demolition teams suddenly disappearing from the area. No more work gangs came. The project seemed to completely halt. Even now there are visible patches of areas being cleared of structures to give way to a wider road. Nothing more. Lippmann again proved his dissertation right.

That the project is unfinished or abandoned is clear. The physical evidence is manifest from a simple driving through the road. It stands to reason that the two constitutional bodies, the Commission on Audit and the Office of the Ombudsman, should do their sworn duty to investigate this obvious pillage of people’s money. In fact, this is decades overdue. They should tell us, the public, who can be held liable for this utter waste of tax money. And when COA and the ombudsman identify the responsible government officers, they should apply the full extent of the law in order to serve notice to other would-be plunderers that crime does pay, especially acts in violation of people’s trust.