Road right-of-way recovery to be strictly enforced

Monday 4th of June 2012

CATBALOGAN CITY, Samar, June 4 -- To provide better quality and safer roads, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Rogelio Singson, through Department Order number 29, urged DPWH district offices to enforce strictly the removal of obstructions and prohibited use of the right-of-way of national roads.

Singson expressed his determination to ensure that the department order is followed and the road right-of-way is totally free from all illegal encroachment.

Records show that pedestrians have been victims of road accidents along the national highways with illegal encroachments on the road shoulders or sidewalks as pedestrians are pushed to walk on the road pavements.

With this order, DPWH Samar’s First Engineering District head Virgilio Eduarte will submit an inventory of all illegal structures and obstructions including utility posts along sidewalks and shoulders to the Central Office.

DPWH Samar’s First Engineering District, at the moment, cannot yet give the schedule of the implementation of Department Order number 29.

DPWH Central Office demands a periodic status report of the removal of these structures from the districts.

The DPWH order is contained in Presidential Decree Number 17 -Revised Philippine Highway Act and the provisions of the National Building Code of the Philippines.

Prohibited uses within the right of way in national roads include private temporary or permanent structures such as buildings, houses, shops, stalls, posts, fences, walls, railings or the like. Included too are plants or plant boxes, driveways, ramps occupying or protruding to the sidewalk.

It is also prohibited to wash or dry clothes, and the disposal of waste water and sewage into the sidewalk, curb, or gutter.

“It shall be unlawful for any person to usurp any portion of a right of way to convert any part of any public highway, bridge, and wharf to one’s own use or obstruct the same in any manner,” the law provides so. (PIA 8-Samar with Nenita Gomez DPWH Samar’s First Engineering District)