Need for more roads in the countrysides

VIEWS

It’s definitely good news that a construction of a lengthy coastal road connecting Davao Oriental and Surigao has been jumpstarted during the latest visit of President Arroyo in Davao Ragion.

The 84-kilometer Surigao-Davao Coastal Road (Manay-Boston Section) is worth P1.7 billion and promises to boost inter-regional linkage and exchange of farm, marine products and other goods between Region Xl and Region Xll. It could also potentially accelerate the development of the Davao Oriental coastal towns like Manay, Baganga, Cateel, and Boston. The towns have big potentials for agricultural activities like crop production, fishing and aquaculture, livestock and poultry raising.

More of this kind should be introduced in Mindanao which has wide areas and thousands of inner and coastal communities that have yet to be connected with roads, nay good, paved roads and highways. Mindanao, for being treated like a vassal province of Imperial Manila for decades, has been reeling from skewed infrastructure fund allocation intentioned by the central government resulting to bad or absence of roads, unproductivity and isolation of rural communities.

Take the Talaingod or Laak which could be connected by a shortcut road or highway to Bukidnon. Once these communities are connected, interregional exchange and trade of goods could be boosted, as when the abundant corn products of Laak could immediately reach the markets of Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro City, and vice versa.

The bad side though of creating roads and highways cutting across forested areas in provinces, like the Compostela-Cateel road that was completed in 1999, is that passages and routes are built for the covert transport of illegally-cut logs. But this is a problem of law enforcement. This should not dampen the thrust of boosting interregional exchange and trade through opening of roads and highways in the countrysides. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News) http://ruralurbanews.blogspot.com

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