PORAC, Pampanga – How many more lives will be lost?
This was the question posed by Councilor Mike Tapang, president of the Philippine Councilors’ League- Pampanga Chapter, as he sponsored a resolution in the provincial board asking the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) “to provide a complete status report on the reconstruction and repair of the damaged portion of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) and initiate proper coordination with the Municipality of Porac to ensure public safety.”
Tapang and town police chief Supt. Niel Miro made an ocular inspection of the Pasig-Potrero Bridge along the SCTEx in Barangay Manuali here last Monday to find out just how a pick-up truck with five persons on board made a wrong turn towards the damaged bridge before plunging about 10 meters into the river last week.
The fatal road accident claimed the life of a lawyer identified as Justiniani Licnachan and injured four of his companions who are now in serious condition in the hospital. Miro surmised that due to inadequate road signs and safety features, the driver of the doomed vehicle inadvertently made a U-turn after noticing that they were headed in the wrong direction to Subic instead of Tarlac.
Inadequate lighting in the area added to the confusion which resulted in the fatal accident, he added. It can be recalled that the west end portion of the Pasig-Potrero Bridge of the SCTEx was swept away by rampaging river
currents during the onslaught of Typhoon Maring last year.
The BCDA said strong river currents set off a massive erosion of up to 10 hectares of land from the banks of the Pasig-Potrero River that caused the damage to a portion of the SCTEx. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the BCDA put up a Bailey bridge over the severely damaged portion of the SCTEx two weeks after it was damaged.
The DPWH said the detachable bridge is perfect for the expressway as it is used around the world while construction or repair is undergoing. But in last Monday’s ocular inspection, Tapang noticed that there is hardly any work being done on the damaged portion.
To aggravate the situation, Tapang and his party were stalled for almost two hours at the entrance of the SCTEx
here while waiting for clearance from the BCDA before allowing the ocular inspection. The BCDA remains the owner of the 93.77-kilometer expressway, tagged as the longest in the country, while the Manila North Tollways
Corp. (MNTC) is preparing to take over the toll road for a seamless integration with the North Luzon Expressway
(NLEx).
But the concession agreement has been revised three times. MNTC proposed a 50-50 sharing scheme for the net cash flow of the operations of SCTEx but the government would also have to shoulder half of the operating expenses as well as capital expeninditures to maintain the tollroad system under the true spirit of the public- private partnership (PPP) scheme.
Under the previous proposal, 70 percent of toll and other revenues from SCTEx would go to Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) which is the holding company of MNTC, while the remaining 30 percent (raised from an original 20 percent) goes to BCDA.
