40 percent of Baguio barangays mapped on RROW recovery program

Some forty percent of the city’s one hundred twenty-eight barangays were already mapped by the City Engineering Office (CEO) in the ongoing city government’s road-right-of-way (RROW) recovery program.

Engr. Januario Borillo, head of the CEO Traffic and Transportation Management Division, stated that based on their findings, there are more than 900 private and public structures and 160 business establishments that have encroached on the RROW of national and local roads.

He disclosed that appropriate engagements had already been done by the CEO on the owners of the structures and establishments that were found to have encroached on the RROW of national and local roads over the past several months and that the same yielded positive results that will pave the way for the city government to recover the encroached areas.

The CEO pointed out that the primary objective of the city government’s RROW recovery program is to help in easing the traffic condition along major roads and ensure that the roads will be compliant to the standard width.

According to him, the city government is gaining headway in the ongoing RROW road recovery program but it will have to take more time for the CEO to complete the mapping of all the city’s barangays and craft the needed strategies to convince owners of structures and businesses that encroached on the RROW to voluntarily remove those that have encroached on the RROW.

Borillo claimed that most owners of structures and businesses that were found to have encroached on the RROW of national and local roads committed to voluntarily demolish such encroachments if the government needed the same for public use.

He explained that in the implementation of the RROW recovery program, national and city roads are being prioritized in the identification of structures and establishments that encroached the established RROW for them to be initially issued the notice of violation as part of the processes involved in the clearing of said roads.

He admitted that the assigned task in ensuring the clearing of roads from encroachments is a difficult task because of the mixed reaction from those being engaged but the city government needs to sustain the realization of the said program to ensure that national and local roads will be freed from obstructions.

For city roads, the standard width should be 10 meters while there are varying widths of national roads depending on the situation where the same ranges from 25 to more than 60 meters.

Borillo said that the CEO will continue to map the remaining barangays to ascertain the prevailing situation in their respective areas of jurisdiction on the RROW recovery program to allow the crafting of the strategies to ensure the realization of the primary objectives of the program.

He assured concerned sectors that the CEO is doing its best to ensure the smooth implementation of the city government’s RROW recovery program for the benefit of the greater majority of the city’s constituency. – Dexter A. See