Building proper roads

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Irate landowners have set up more tollgates in southern Negros Occidental. The story is familiar: the landowners are demanding that the Department of Public Works and Highways pay them for the use of the land over the past 50 years. Land on which the government has built a highway but apparently forgot, or maybe deliberately ignored, the appeals for compensation of the original owners.

What makes this development significant is that a critical national highway runs through these disputed lands, and obviously, the erection of tollgates will be an added inconvenience to the motorists, commuters, and cargo that pass through this busy stretch of road everyday. For the landowners to resort to this drastic action, they must have felt that they have run out of options in pursuing their claims of compensation from the government.

A dialog between the landowners concerned and government officials who have the power to remedy this situation would be appreciated by the people of southern Negros Occidental if it will result in the immediate reopening of the roads, and a final resolution to the claims of the aggrieved parties.

Aside from finding a lasting solution to this recurring problem, our government also has to learn from these incidents, especially because the President's recent SONA outlined the building of thousands of kilometers of farm-to-market roads. We hope that those new roads get the proper funding, which should also include money for the expropriation of the lands on which they will be built. It would be a great disservice to the landowners, the Filipino people, and future government officials if this ambitious plan of the current administration to build thousands of kilometers of roads ends up with a problem like the one being faced by the highway along Hinobaan and Sipalay today.*