South Leyte solon heads lower house’s committee on public works

By BONG PEDALINO (PIA Southern Leyte)
August 16, 2007

MAASIN CITY, Southern Leyte  –  The lawmaker from the lone congressional district of Southern Leyte, Rep. Roger Mercado, has been named chairman of the powerful Public Works Committee in the House of Representatives.

This was learned from Cong. Mercado himself last week in a casual chat on the sidelines of his visit to the Visayas State University (VSU), formerly ViSCA, some 90 kilometers going north from this city.

As the man in-charge of the public works in the lower house legislature, Mercado said one of his primary concerns was to try to decongest the busy streets of Metro Manila.

“I will look into the possibility of implementing the decongestion of Metro Manila.  What we mean there is to develop the road networks in the provinces,” Cong. Mercado said.

He added:  “We will develop national highways, and I will look into those that are not yet developed, those that had been started but not finished, and the reason for delays.”

He gave as specific example the national highway from Allen to Catbalogan, on “what’s the reason why they could not do it as fast as they could, and help them so this road can be passable and could be used already.”

“I want to help region 8, this is also one of the reasons why I seek the chairmanship because region 8 is still one of the depressed regions of the country,” he further said.

Part of his task was to see to it that the infrastructure program of President Arroyo as outlined in the super-regions project can be materialized.

The Public Works Committee also has an oversight function on the performance of a government agency, in this case the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and this posed a great responsibility on the committee.