ROAD CHECK. A newly-paved road in Carigara, Leyte. The Department of Public Works and Highways on Tuesday (Nov. 10, 2020) conducts a thorough inspection of all national roads and bridges in Eastern Visayas. (Photo courtesy of DPWH 2nd Leyte District Engineering Office)
TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is currently conducting a thorough inspection of all national roads and bridges in Eastern Visayas.
DPWH regional information officer Cressida Paula Mangaporo, in a phone interview Tuesday, said the agency's four inspection teams completed last week the 15-day assessment and came up with a list of specific areas that need immediate rectification by their field offices.
A 30-day validation is still ongoing to find out how the DPWH district engineering offices (DEOs) rectify problems such as potholes and alligator cracks, poor vegetation control, unclean and poorly maintained or clogged drainage systems.
“The inspection was done through walking the line to ensure a thorough road assessment, determining not only the degree of performance of DPWH regional and field offices in maintaining road networks but also evaluated the adherence to the response time prescribed for each defect and the quality of rectification works,” Mangaporo told the Philippine News Agency.
For the first time, this year’s assessment was done by the inspectorate teams from the DPWH regional office maintenance division instead of the DPWH's Bureau of Maintenance (BOM) since personnel from the central office are not allowed to travel to provinces due to the health crisis.
In the past, BOM sent an evaluation team twice a year to regional offices nationwide.
The regional inspectorate team will document the performance of district offices in terms of maintaining roads and bridges and send them to BOM.
The BOM is expected to give a final rating for each district engineering office early next year.
Early this month, the DPWH has deployed four teams with each team assigned to check the roads and bridges network in three to four DEOs in Eastern Visayas.
The region has 13 DEOs in congressional districts and this city, the regional capital.
As of the end of 2019, the region has 2,563 kilometers of national highway with 1,632.72 kilometers concrete, 918.11 kilometers asphalt, and 12.26 kilometers are still unpaved.
The total length of the region’s bridges is 34,774 meters. (PNA)
