Road maintenance reaches P20 billion a year - DPWH

MANILA, Philippines - The maintenance of the country's road networks reaches P20 billion annually and the Department of Public Works on Monday said that overloaded trucks is one of the causes. This, according to DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr, is one of the factors why government needs to strictly implement the anti-overloading law. "The situation on road maintenance is a substantial investment. The estimate maintenance budget for 30,000 kilometers of national roads annually is P13 billion," Ebdane said in a press conference Monday afternoon. However, he added that rampant and irresponsible overloading by truckers bloats this figure to P20 billion annually. To bolster his argument, Ebdane cited a study by the Road Information and Management Support System (RIMSS) which states that most of the offenses occurred in Northern and Central Luzon areas with trucks overloading by 8-16%. The other hotspots include the Cebu-Toledo Wharf in Region 7 with 13 percent overloading, and Butuan City-Cagayan de Oro City route in Region 10 with 5 percent overloading. Ebdane added that they are working currently to set measures to penalize overloaded trucks, which is one of the factors for the early deterioration of roads and bridges in the country. One of these measures is the use of weighbridges and the deployment of trucks in strategic areas. "Now… these truckers, they are complaining that if they stick to regular weight limit, they will incur losses of P5 billion annually," Ebdane said. However, Ebdane said that the truckers' losses is minimal compared to the impact of the damage incurred. "With this announcement, we hope to warn the truckers of the consequences of their violations of the law," he said. "We have thought of putting standby trucks in hot places." - GMANews.TV