EXTRA: Larap road concreting done by May 2014

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

THE concreting of the unfinished portion of the road to Larap proper is hoped to be completed by May 2014.

The funding for this project, which has been secured from the Department of Tourism through the General Appropriation Act, would be released by November this year.

Concreting of the remaining two-kilometer road from Spurline at Purok 8 to the Larap proper is expected to begin between December and January next year.

Since the allocated amount would be around P20 million, or P10 million per kilometer, the road project would be handled by the provincial government, and not the Mambulao local government.

Under the existing rules, all national funding of municipal projects exceeding P5 million shall be coursed through the office of the provincial governor.

The funding allocation from the Tourism department was learned from an email sent by Mambulao Mayor Ricarte “Dong” Padilla to Samuel Tatom, one of the officers of the LaPIMA (Laking PIM Ako), an association of the children  of families who benefited from the mining operations by the Philippine Iron Mines (PIM)  in Larap until the middle of 1970.

Padilla said: “The cementing from Spurline to Larap barangay proper will resume between December (2013)-January next year, and would be completed in 120-150 days.”

“So I request everybody to sympathize (with the LGU) and give a little more patience while we are exhausting all possible means to complete the ‘century dream project’ of Mambulao.”

LaPIMA wrote to Padilla for an update of the road concreting project, which has now reached Spurline at Purok 8, which is about 8km from the center of the barrangay.

The association was until yesterday trying to raise funds through donations from members based overseas to help the LGU sustain its concreting of the Larap segment.

So far, it has raised at least P20,000, or about 86 bags of cement, in pledges.

But with the new money from the national government, LaPIMA has advised its members to hold on to their donations.

The concreting of the 7km road from Mambulao poblacion at the junction of the Larap road in Motherlode began in 2011 and has so far reached the Spurline at Purok 8.

Using funds raised from friendly members of Congress who are holders of pork barrel, Padilla has managed to build a kilometer of concrete road for only P5 million as against the standard P10 million billed by the Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH) and the provincial government.

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