BUGUIAS, Benguet – The Department of Public Works and Highways – Second Benguet Engineering district (DPWH-SBED) ordered the contractors of Dito Communications to immediately restore the evident damages inflicted on public works projects by their ongoing laying of fiber optic cables to ensure the safety of the motoring and commuting public who traverse the same daily.
DPWH-SBED District Engineer Alex Castañeda stated that he personally engaged the Chinese personnel of the aforesaid telecommunication company and reminded them to appropriately restore the damages they inflicted on completed and ongoing public works projects in northern Benguet to prevent unnecessary inconveniences to the motoring and commuting public.
He said that it is important for the company to immediately restore the damages on public works projects to deter incidents that will pose a serious threat to the lives of peoples as the laying if its fiber optic cables are being done on major road networks within the area of jurisdiction of the DPWH-SBED.
The district engineer claimed that the agency hired an interpreter to make sure they and company personnel understood each other because the Chinese engineers could not speak English, thus, the agency was lucky to have an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) from Buguias who worked in Taiwan that served as the interpreter during the duration of their talks.
He urged the public to report to the district office any incident of damages inflicted by the ongoing laying of fiber cables by the telecommunications company so the attention of its personnel could be called for the immediate restoration of the same because the government could not afford that the safety of life and limb could be compromised.
According to him, assigned personnel of the agency will be going around northern Benguet to inspect the status of the various completed and ongoing public works projects to ensure that they are in good condition and that if there had been damages that had been inflicted by the ongoing expansion of lines by the telecommunications company, appropriate and immediate action will be done for the same to restore the discovered damages for the safety of the motoring and commuting public.
He asserted that the government will not allow individuals and private companies to inflict damages to the implemented projects as the same will compromise the state of the said projects as well as public safety.
DPWH-SBED covers the municipalities of Tublay, Kapangan, Kibungan, Atok, Bakun, Buguias and Mankayan and its office is situated at Natubleng, Buguias town.
More than P2 billion worth of infrastructure projects will be implemented in the said localities by the government this year to help improve the state of infrastructure in the northern part of the province. By HENT
