What’s the logic behind badly timed roadwork?

May I call attention to the maintenance work being undertaken on Coastal Road at this time of the year when rains are at their heaviest.

I do not know what prompted the decision to go ahead with the project. I cannot fathom the logic behind it. But to start laying asphalt on that busiest portion of Coastal Road now that monsoon rains are at their worst—that is epic idiocy! The work could have been done last summer, when vehicular volume was lighter, not to mention the fact that the asphalt would have dried faster.

Have the people behind this project even visited that stretch of Coastal Road since the rains started? Don’t they find hilarious the sight of those tarpaulins laid atop the newly laid asphalt in a vain effort to protect it from the rains? Have they tried driving through Coastal Road when residents of Las Piñas and Cavite are trooping home?

What used to take us 30 minutes to an hour to traverse now takes us more than two hours. And when the habagat was at its fiercest, we were stuck there for more than three hours. What made the whole experience more horrific was the news that our areas were fast being overrun by flood. And we could not do anything but pray that our family members would be safe. The following night was even more terrible. It took us four hours to negotiate the length of Coastal Road from its Manila-end to the Bacoor exit. As I write, I am wondering if that record will be broken tonight.

The way I and the other affected people see it, this man-made problem has no realistic solution. The roadwork cannot proceed for as long as the rains keep pouring. And based on the weather bureau’s estimate, we can expect 2-3 more storms before the month ends. So unless nature suddenly decides to reverse the climate pattern by backtracking to summer, the half-completed beds of asphalt that cover 90 percent of the road will remain where they are. And we, the hapless citizens whose only fault was to entrust our fate to people like them, are left with no option but to subject ourselves to the nightly agony of the traffic jam they have created. For that, I express my sincerest “thanks.”

—ALDRIN P. MALAKI,

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