MAASIN CITY – The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) field office here received nine new chariot-type maintenance crew service vehicles from Southern Leyte Representative Roger Mercado.
DPWH Southern Leyte district engineering office (SLDEO) chief Ma. Margarita Junia accepted the new vehicles during the turnover ceremony on April 6.
She expressed appreciation to Mercado and the provincial government for their support and contribution to the department’s projects.
“These new vehicles will help boost the agency’s capability to maintain roads and infrastructures in Southern Leyte,” Junia said.
The nine service vehicles will be given to each maintenance point persons (MPPs) designated in different locations in Southern Leyte.
MPPs are tasked to supervise road maintenance works such as vegetation control, manual ditch cleaning clearing of obstruction, cleaning of culverts and manholes, manual patching of shoulders, as well as sidewalk and gutter cleaning.
The point persons conduct daily inspection of their assigned road sections including bridges to identify defects and deficiencies.
“With these new vehicles for our MPPs, we will be able to improve our road rating and we can now adhere to the policy of quickly responding to restore road defects,” Junia said citing the department order directing personnel to fix road defects within two days.
These defects include potholes, alligator cracks, major scaling, shoving and corrugation, pumping and depression, faded road markings, inverted shoulder, lush vegetation, clogged drains, and open manholes.
“As a sign of our gratitude to the donors, rest assured that these new vehicles will be taken care of. We assure that the utilization of these equipment is in line with our duty to continually improve the maintenance service delivery to the public and to keep our national roads safe and convenient for the people of Southern Leyte,” said maintenance section chief Gideon Sacro.
The DPWH field office here is tasked to maintain 299 kilometers of national roads and 155 bridges, built in 18 towns and one city. (PR)