A CANDIDATE’S DIARY, DAY 19: THE (BAD) ROAD TO PERDITION

One of the the most serious issues which will greatly influence the outcome of the 2013 gubernatorial elections in North Cotabato is the bad state of the provincial and even farm to market roads in the province.

In one caucus I had in one village in Pigcawayan, North Cotabato, a man in the audience asked me if I had Tilapia fingerlings for distribution.

When I asked why he needed the Tilapia fingerlings, he said he wanted to turn the provincial road into a fishpond when the rainy season comes.

I could only laugh at the practical sarcasm of an ordinary villager fed up by the neglect of the provincial government of the rural roads.

Last Wednesday, I decided to come down from Banisilan using the long-neglected provincial road connecting the northernmost town to Libungan in the PALMA area.

During the years I was Governor of North Cotabato, the Rural Transit, one of the biggest bus companies in Mindanao, served this route making travel easy and comfortable for people of Banisilan who wanted to transact business in the big towns of Midsayap and even the provincial capitol in Kidapawan City.

The Rural Transit service has been stopped and the road is negotiable during sunny days by four-wheel drive vehicles and motorcycles.

Today, the options are to go through the long and circuitous route of going up to Wao, Lanao del Sur and then to Maramag, Bukidnon and then down to Kabacan through Carmen town.

This trip takes about four to five hours compared to only about one hour back in the days when the Banisilan-Libungan Provincial Road was still in good shape.

Traveling the route from Banisilan to Libungan, I saw several provincial road building equipment doing last minute repairs of badly battered road.

This, of course, is an election violation because all infrastructure works are supposed to cease during the campaign period, except when the contracts were awarded before the start of the campaign.

But I do not intend to raise this issue. This is the only time the road has been repaired and I will not deprive the people of Banisilan a little comfort, never mind if the repairs are actually desperate efforts to win voters over to the side of those in power now.

As my convoy moved farther down the road, I saw firsthand the really bad state of the provincial road which was cut off right in Barangay Bao in Alamada because the portion of the road from Bao to Nicaan, Libungan was not passable.

There, we had to turn left and take a long and difficult route which took us to the remote villages of Kitubud, Kapayawi and Palau before we hit the main road again, this time already in the town of Libungan.

All told, the tough trip took us about 3 hours and it was not an easy trip.

At the end of the long trip, I realized why people are so disenchanted with the way the current administration is addressing the problems of the rural folks whose lives have been made more difficult by the apparent neglect.

All the more I was convinced that the much ballyhooed signature projects of the current administration in the province which are the covered courts and the green multi-cabs distributed to the different barangays are evident manifestations of the lack of appreciation of the actual needs and problems of the people.

Indeed, the bad roads will lead to the inevitable political perdition of many who are in power now.

They are realizing this now but it is a bit too late.