DPWH Exec not awed by ratings of peers

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

LINGAYEN – An executive of the District Engineering Office (DEO) based here was not impressed by the Project Monitoring Division of the Bureau of Construction of the Department of Public Works & Highway.

Photo Credit: GMA-7

The brass, who asked anonymity, said the inclusion of the two DEOs in Pangasinan in the Numbers 6 and 7 places were not fair.

In that ranking the 1^st District Engineering Office under District Engineering Smile R. Fermin snatched 5^th Place with a weighted rating of 92.61% while 4^th District Engineering Office under District Engineer Marieta B. Mendoza garnered the 7^th place with a weighted rating of 92.41%.

The huge Pangasinan province has been divided by four DEOs where the 5th and 4^th Engineering Offices supervise projects implementation in the First and Third Congressional Districts, respectively, while the 2^nd DEO handles infrastructure implementation for the 2^nd and 4^th Congressional Districts while the 3rd supervises project implementation in the 5^th and 6^th Congressional Districts.

The ratings, according to the Project Monitoring Division, were based on their implementation of their projects, ensuring road safety within their areas of jurisdiction, and over-all management and leadership performance of the District Engineers.
DPWH implements infrastructures like road widening and maintenance of national highways, post-harvest facilities, school buildings, health centers, multipurpose gyms, health centers, and flood control projects.

The basis of the contest was that 80 percent of all the projects awarded last year to all DEOs in Luzon should be accomplished by December 2016.

“How could the 2^nd and the 3rd Engineering Districts compete since we each have two congressional districts while the 1^st and the 4^th handle only each congressional district,” the executive deplored.

He cited that the 1st and 4^th DEOs have 160 projects while the two districts have only 60 projects each to boot.

“They could easily finish their projects while we struggled to finish ours,” he added.