On my way to and from Batangas today, I had to traverse the SLEX and endure its' severe condition. Yes, it is being upgraded and widened, but do we have to put up with the unsafe situation prevailing in its entirety? If a driver would dare to increase his driving speed, he may end up damaging the vehicle's suspension considering the uneven portions of the road. There are sudden bumps and protrusions specially in the joints of the newly built or repaired bridges.
The signages of the President and the billboards advertising various products far outnumber road signs and warnings. If one is not keen in watching which lane he would drive into, he might end up missing his exit. This is much worse during the night. Lighting is virtually non-existent and reflectorized signs are but few, making the travel a guessing game.
The barriers separating the existing highway and the newly excavated portions are altogether another matter. These are gray concrete barriers that are virtually invisible at nighttime. There are some with neon lights in them but these are of no help specially during rainy nights. It was drizzling this evening and we could barely see these barriers.
Housekeeping is not practiced. The excavated soil are most of the times splattered on the road and these turn to dangerous, slippery mud when it rains. No lights, no signs, muddy roads and hard-to-see concrete barriers are prime ingredients to vehicular disasters.
Us from Southern Luzon have had to endure these for the last two years and five months. The PNCC and the MTD Manila Expressway Corporation have been going on their own sweet, sweet time trying to make heads and tails of the upgrading and rehabilitation of the SLEX. They are expected to finish the whole thing by March 2009, but with the current speed the work is being done, we dare say that it would take more than one year to see a semblance of a modern highway. That means, one more year of driving dangerously, one more year of Russian roulette commuting.
Haaaaaay naku. Happy Halloween to all.
Showing posts with label Batangas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Batangas. Show all posts
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
That Gasoline Tanker Blast
I grew up in a rural community that is host to an an oil refinery. I have had my share of memories of accidental fires in the facility; of the two most vivid ones, one left a relative severely burned and disfigured and one involved an oil tanker that was burned while docked at the refinery's jetty at Batangas Bay.
It goes without saying that at an early age, I was already aware of the real danger posed by inappropriate handling of gasoline products. Come to think of it, our family home is less than a kilometer away from two giant LPG vessels. Do I know how to be wary of mishandling LPG!
I ended up working for some time for an American company that built a new refinery to replace the thirty year old relic. A few months before completion of the new plant, I witnessed a fireball that erupted from a flare caused by the build up of pressure due to a malfunctioning pump. I was in an airconditioned building some five hundred meters away from that flare but I still felt the extreme heat when the blast occurred.
Having been exposed to all these, I was first lured into studies concerning safety and later on began to look into the realm of the environment and the conservation of natural resources. Learning is a lifelong passion and so I continue to study up to this day.
Yesterday, past 10 pm, Manila time, a tanker carrying 14,000 liters of diesel fuel and 2,000 liters of gasoline exploded after crossing Nagtahan Bridge in Manila. One person was killed, a number injured and some 13 vehicles were burned.
This incident made me write this post. The Batangas refinery has a 110 thousand barrels per stream day capacity. The finished products are transported using gasoline lorries, LPG tankers or barges or pumped through the two pipelines laid out between Batangas and Manila. In moving these products, the trucks, lorries and tankers pass through residential areas of the City.
Now that I am thinking of it, I have suddenly realized that these products pass through a route that is barely two hundred meters away from my house!
It is high time that a review of the oil movement situation in Batangas is done. An accident has occurred in Manila and we should not wait for an accident to happen in Batangas. Let us act now and prevent similar incidents from happening.
It goes without saying that at an early age, I was already aware of the real danger posed by inappropriate handling of gasoline products. Come to think of it, our family home is less than a kilometer away from two giant LPG vessels. Do I know how to be wary of mishandling LPG!
I ended up working for some time for an American company that built a new refinery to replace the thirty year old relic. A few months before completion of the new plant, I witnessed a fireball that erupted from a flare caused by the build up of pressure due to a malfunctioning pump. I was in an airconditioned building some five hundred meters away from that flare but I still felt the extreme heat when the blast occurred.
Having been exposed to all these, I was first lured into studies concerning safety and later on began to look into the realm of the environment and the conservation of natural resources. Learning is a lifelong passion and so I continue to study up to this day.
Yesterday, past 10 pm, Manila time, a tanker carrying 14,000 liters of diesel fuel and 2,000 liters of gasoline exploded after crossing Nagtahan Bridge in Manila. One person was killed, a number injured and some 13 vehicles were burned.
This incident made me write this post. The Batangas refinery has a 110 thousand barrels per stream day capacity. The finished products are transported using gasoline lorries, LPG tankers or barges or pumped through the two pipelines laid out between Batangas and Manila. In moving these products, the trucks, lorries and tankers pass through residential areas of the City.
Now that I am thinking of it, I have suddenly realized that these products pass through a route that is barely two hundred meters away from my house!
It is high time that a review of the oil movement situation in Batangas is done. An accident has occurred in Manila and we should not wait for an accident to happen in Batangas. Let us act now and prevent similar incidents from happening.
Friday, January 18, 2008
The Batangas Bay Experience
Way back 1996, as a member then of the Provincial Board of Batangas, we authored an Ordinance creating the Batangas Bay Region Environmental Protection Council. We thought of creating that Council when we realized just how many Government agencies were somehow directly or indirectly involved in the enforcement of laws pertaining to the unique ecosystem of Batangas Bay.
Consider this: we had the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Philippine Navy, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Maritime Industry Authority, the then Export Processing Zone Authority now Philippine Economic Zone Authority, the Provincial Government, the City Government of Batangas, and the Municipal Governments of Bauan, San Pascual and Tingloy.
Honestly, our sole purpose then was to pass an Ordinance that would create a body that would somehow convince these government agencies to sit down together and talk about Batangas Bay. There is an ulterior motive though and that is by bringing them together, the sustainable development of Batangas Bay may be, even parenthetically, discussed. That would be an achievement.
Meet they did at least four times a year from then on. Eventually, the council became part of the programs of the UNDP and PEMSEA for Batangas Bay.
Fast forward to 2005 and Dr. Kent Carpenter and Victor Springer and their finding that Batangas Bay is the center of the center of Marine biodiversity with the richest concentration of marine life in the entire planet. It has long been known that the Philippines belongs to an ocean region that has the most marine life but it was only after Carpenter and Springer published their study that the significance of Batangas Bay to the world of marine biology became evident.
We never knew this in 1995 when we started the move to pass the Ordinance. Somehow, mother earth managed to have its way and the law that would help in protecting our beloved bay came to be.
Consider this: we had the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Philippine Navy, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Maritime Industry Authority, the then Export Processing Zone Authority now Philippine Economic Zone Authority, the Provincial Government, the City Government of Batangas, and the Municipal Governments of Bauan, San Pascual and Tingloy.
Honestly, our sole purpose then was to pass an Ordinance that would create a body that would somehow convince these government agencies to sit down together and talk about Batangas Bay. There is an ulterior motive though and that is by bringing them together, the sustainable development of Batangas Bay may be, even parenthetically, discussed. That would be an achievement.
Meet they did at least four times a year from then on. Eventually, the council became part of the programs of the UNDP and PEMSEA for Batangas Bay.
Fast forward to 2005 and Dr. Kent Carpenter and Victor Springer and their finding that Batangas Bay is the center of the center of Marine biodiversity with the richest concentration of marine life in the entire planet. It has long been known that the Philippines belongs to an ocean region that has the most marine life but it was only after Carpenter and Springer published their study that the significance of Batangas Bay to the world of marine biology became evident.
We never knew this in 1995 when we started the move to pass the Ordinance. Somehow, mother earth managed to have its way and the law that would help in protecting our beloved bay came to be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
