Oh, Those Tearing Down and Uprooting by the Jal-o

     I have been interrupted by the recent development in my town these days. As some of you might have observed, contractual workers deployed by the DPWH Aklan Engineering District Office have been tearing down, felling and uprooting those ornamental plants along the Nautical Highway passing through Balete. What is sad about it is that they are being painstakingly maintained by the residents and barangay officials themselves.

    I learned that the DPWH Aklan Engineering District Office and the Aklan Provincial Tourism Office expressed their resolved in a letter addressed to the Municipal Mayor of Balete. They were requesting the cooperation of all concerned Barangay Officials in Balete to the on-going roadside maintenance along the national highway by the DPWH Aklan Engineering Office. They said that they are not tearing them down but just relocating “all the ornamental plants along the road carriageway shoulder to provide the needed standard shoulder width to obtain traffic safety”.


    In reaction, the local officials adopted a resolution to express their unanimous stand on the issue at hand. In the resolution, they averred that the said ornamental plants/trees have been reared and they form parts of the Urban Regreening Program/Grow-a-Tree for Legacy Concept of 2006 of which the DPWH Aklan Engineering Office and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Aklan (DENR-PENRO) were co-signees with the Local Government of Balete per a memorandum of agreement entered into and signed on July 28, 2006 in Kalibo, Aklan. The MOA stipulates the tasks of the parties involved therein and for which the DPWH was the one which identified and prescribed the specific distance/area to be planted.

Those roadside vegetation in their early stage.

   They also observed the following facts: 

• the Provincial Government of Aklan sustained the program under its Aklan Regreening and Beautification Project 

• it enlisted the participation of the barangays and their respective constituents through annual conferment of awards 

• despite the bumpy, ill-maintained and winding national road cutting through its expanse, Balete has been associated by motorists and pedestrians with beautiful roadside scenery, the proof of which is that many of its barangays consistently received the following Provincial recognitions:

a.      Barangay Calizo –2008, 2^nd Prize Winner

                           2009, 1^st Prize Winner

   2010, 1^st Prize Winner

   2011, 1^st Prize Winner

b.      Barangay Feliciano –2009, 2^nd Prize Winner

                           2010, 3^rd Prize Winner

                           2011, 3^rd Prize Winner

c.       Barangay Fulgencio—2009, 2^nd Prize Winner (tie with Feliciano)

         2010, Consolation Prize recipient

         2011, 2^nd Prize Winner

   

•  in the similar activity, the Municipality of Balete was recipient of a special award from the Provincial Government in 2009 when it was conferred with a plaque of recognition as ‘The Best in Barangay Mobilization and Award Performance’

A Riddle Inside a Mystery Wrap in an Enigma

The sudden insistence on the part of the DPWH-Aklan Engineering Office and the cajoling of the Aklan Provincial Tourism Office of tearing apart what the Baleten-on public and officials have painstakingly grown to make for a beautiful, refreshing and panoramic roadside greeneries came as a surprise in view of the fact that the program was their own making. It has served them well in providing diversion from the otherwise uneven national road. It is as well enigmatic if we take their logic of obtaining traffic safety when they even refused or failed to act on the manifestations/requests of this Sanggunian per the following resolutions, viz.:

•  Resolution No. 077-09 adopted on October 8, 2009, re installing road signs and cat’s eyes along the national road;
•  Resolution No. 053-08 adopted on July 11, 2008, re causing the painting of the local project “Construction of Sidewalk and Gutter along the National Road, Poblacion, Balete, Aklan”;
•  Resolution No. 2005-41 adopted on May 30, 2005, re speeding up the implementation of the construction of sidewalk and gutter along the National Highway;

     The local officials see through the justification of the letter of the Aklan Provincial Tourism Office as to invoke public safety for pedestrians and motorists. Their understanding however is that what is of paramount importance is the surface of the main carriage way which should be soft, well-paved and free from any defect that may contribute to accidents and not to demolish the existing development collectively agreed upon on the road shoulders.

The Proposal of the Local Officials 

      Considering the generated support and active cooperation from the residents and barangay officials for which the Local Government of Balete has been awarded and recognized as the best in mobilizing its constituency to achieve such sustained and laudable development; where residents have made it their way of life in maintaining their adopted plat abutting the road shoulders, we deem it absurd that we now ask them to uproot those that they have belabored to plant and nurture to bloom vis-à-vis the commendations that they have received consistently over the years. The elective local officials thus propose that the Aklan Provincial Tourism Office and the DPWH Aklan Engineering Office engage those residents and convince them to demolish the flowerings and fruits of their labor, for after all, “Uprooting and deflowering is more fun in the Philippines or Aklan;”