DPWH brass will not pay shoddy work

Mortz C. Ortigoza

STA. BARBARA, Pangasinan – Unlike other District Engineers (D.E) of the Department of Public Works & Highway, the D.E here will not pay contractor for a substandard infrastructure work.

4th Engineering Office's D.E Simplicio D. Gonzales said he will ask the contractor to repeat his shoddy work.

“Blame ko diyan contractor. Hindi ko babayaran iyan!” he stressed to this newspaper.

Gonzales cited those he will withhold payments are the one who built newly constructed highway with cracks on their pavements.

Components of Road Structure. Photo Credit: Google.com

The Declaration of Gonzales cropped up when some DPWH district offices allowed contractors to apply asphalt or epoxy to cover the gap caused by the cracks of their newly constructed highways.

He said every highway should have a broken line of 4.5 meters apart from the width to avoid fractures due to the friction of the tires of the moving vehicles.

“Within 24 hours kailangan malagyan mo ng constriction joint ng weakening (inaudible) kasi iyang concrete bumibitak iyan, ” he explained after this writer told him about crack pavement caused by the friction of vehicles' tires.

With the broken line, the impact stop there thus avoiding any fracture.

“Ang concrete hinde puweding hinde ka crack. With 4.5 meters usually doon nag ka crack pag di mo lalagyan iyan dirediretso ang crack”.

A one kilometer concrete paved highway costs the Philippines government twenty five to thirty million pesos, according to Gonzales.

Its standard size is 20-meter minimum width and 280 millimeters (11.02 inches) thick highway.

When former Pangasinan Fifth District Congressman Mark Cojuangco saw that a contractor just covered with concrete the roots of the cut century old acacia tree in a town in his district, he chided the latter because the concrete highway would crash because of the hollowed space below left by the worn out roots.

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