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 Bad trip: The Department of Public Works and Highways lists this road project between the towns of Bagumbayan and Sen. Ninoy Aquino in Sultan Kudarat as "partially finished" but commuters, motorists and local traders ride like hell when passing by here. RICK FLORES SEN. NINOY AQUINO, Sultan Kudarat — It is in places such as these that the role good quality roads play in helping to improve people’s livelihoods is so easily understood.
Norman Lucero, 47, is the driver of a Mitsubishi commuter van which ploughs the 85-kilometer route between Isulan and Kulaman (recently renamed Senator Ninoy Aquino) in Sultan Kudarat, Mindanao. It would be wrong to call this a road since it remains far from completed and is the reason Norman can only charge his passengers PhP 150 (USD 3) for the one way trip that can take up to four or even five hours.
Those who can afford the fare but cannot afford to waste half a day traveling take a bike taxi instead – called habal-habal – and pay PhP 500 (USD 12) for the pleasure.
“It is much better to ride through habal-habal,” says Dante Largajo, “because you can enjoy the scenery of Sultan Kudarat.”
“But,” he adds, "even then you must be prepared because I cannot always be sure we will arrive here in Kulaman safely due to the road conditions.”
Largajo says he prefers the motorbike because of time. “I need to catch up my meeting and I am required to be there on time,” the young credit investigating officer of a sprouting lending business firm told the Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project (PPTRP).
“This is the price of going to areas where roads are clearly impassable, but my (credit) company is willing to spend because we see the economic potential of Kulaman,” says Largajo.
But the state of the roads means Norman and people like him are left trapped in dire poverty. While he can earn up to PhP 4,500 (USD 105) in fares a day from squeezing the passengers in, he takes home less than a tenth of that after paying for gasoline and the rent of the van.
The van belongs to the man who also happens to have his two-hectare farmland mortgaged to: So of the PhP 325 (USD 8) he takes home each day, PhP 200 (USD 5) is deducted straight away to pay for that.
“My daily net income is so little given the high price of diesoline,” shares the Ilonggo driver and father of five. “Nagabulig man ang mga igso ko sa akon sang kaon sang pamilya ko pero ‘alaws gid bala (My siblings are helping me but I still can’t cope with my economic problems),” Lucero complains.
“Waay gyud ko mahimo bala, lubog ko sa utang (I am entrapped with this system: I am also burdened with debt),” says Lucero.
A PhP 125 (USD 3) daily income is barely enough for two kilograms of rice and a very simple piece of meat for his family. “I could earn more if I could make more trips on the Isulan-Kulaman route – but the road just makes it impossible,” Lucero says.
Confusing road data
“It is really ironic that this long stretch of deadly highway is being reported as ‘accomplished’ by the previous administration,” laments Rey Palabon, area manager of the Tri-people Concern for Peace, Progress, and Development of Mindanao (TRICOM), a Davao City-based non-government organization which is assisting indigenous coffee farmers in the municipality’s 22 villages.
“We can’t help but hear how commuters are complaining to us – but no one is really mobilizing or complaining to the people who count,” Vicente Toring, TRICOM’s community organizer told PPTRP.
According to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) online data, the Isulan-Bagumbayan-Kulaman road project is listed as partly finished. The DPWH report on infrastructure projects for Region XII as of January 31, 2010 highlights the department’s “completed, on-going, and not yet started” projects.
But amazingly, a lot of projects listed as being “accomplished” and serving as positive indicators and milestones for the DPWH are “multi-purpose buildings” and not the basic roads that people like Necasio Badbarin, a local corn grower, says are most urgently needed.
Bad roads are bad for business
 Buildings first: Instead of improving roads which would help ensure economic growth and safety of its people, the Sultan Kudarat local government prioritizes establishing "multi-purpose buildings." RICK FLORES Nestled 1,120 meters above sea level, Kulaman is an ideal place for arabica and robusta coffee. Tribal coffee farmers have been cultivating the famous Kulaman coffee since the 1960s long before the influx of large logging concessions began operating in Sultan Kudarat.
Datu Angkay Omot, leader of the Kulaman Manobo Dulangan Organization (KMDO), a council of elders in the municipality, told PPTRP: “We have longed to see better roads and better public vehicles fetching my people from Kulaman to Isulan. I am old and I want to see better roads.”
The lack of a good road, he believes, allows middlemen to come and exploit the natïve Manobo coffee farmers who are currently dissuaded from travelling to urban centers to meet the large international buyers themselves.
“Please tell them (the traders) to reveal to us the actual buying price rates of Nestle because we are not privy to their negotiations,” Omot says, referring to the multinational consumer company.
But Omot’s dream appears far-fetched given the apparent priorities of DPWH and the provincial government itself. DPWH’s focus appears to be on the provision of many “multi-purpose buildings” rather than building what many of the the province’s constituents really say they need – good and finished roads.
The lump sum allocation for Sultan Kudarat’s roads and other infrastructure under FY 2009 Republic Act 9524 General Appropriations Act as of March 21, 2011 has reached a whopping PhP 40 million (USD 930,232).
But of the total releases, only PhP 6.5 million (USD 151,163) were devoted to roads and other infrastructures, namely the “Repair/Rehabilitation of National Highway Junction-Dukay-Bagumbayan-Sen. Biwang-Sarmiento Section with exception,” and “Completion of Hanging Bridge-Brgy. Midtungok Sen. Ninoy Aquino.”
Because of poor road conditions, coffee traders like Rizal and Glenda Suarez are charging PhP 3 per kilo for transporting coffee from Kulaman to General Santos City where Nestle is stationed.
“We have no choice: Farmers will have to pay twice as much as we charge if they are the ones bringing their coffee beans to the buyer,” Rizal Suarez told PPTRP at his trading outpost in this sleepy municipality.
Poor roads lessen competition and help inflate the price of moving goods to market according to Badbarin who says improvements will seriously help corn and coffee farmers earn a fairer share.
Sultan Kudarat’s Provincial Engineer Edgar Ma-aya stressed that multi-purpose buildings are priority projects rather than the national roads. “Because of the transfer of funds to the barangays (villages), it is the barangays that determine their priority projects,” he told PPTRP.
Besides, he says, the Isulan-Kulaman highway is a national road which the regional DPWH has jurisdiction. “They were converted to national roads so we have no direct hand in terms of improving the highway but to assist the DPWH,” he says. He adds that since 2010 the Provincial Engineer’s Office has built more than 90 percent of multi-purpose buildings in the province.
“Before the road pavement, we should have built the buildings first for the people.” he said. Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project
(The author is a freelance journalist covering under-reported areas in Mindanao.)
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What's wrong with these photos (apart from the blocked out bits)? 
