[First of two parts]
MALOLOS CITY—Unknown to many residents of this capital of Bulacan, one of the busiest roads just a stone’s throw away from the Provincial Capitol here has no name.
None of the 13 members of the current Sangguniang Panlalawigan have taken notice of this nameless road, although not too long ago, the provincial board was cited in a complaint by a retired judge before the Ombudsman for renaming Andres Bonifacio Road in the city’s Barangay Tikay to Mighty Road.
The change, the complainant contended, was to glorify the cigarette company whose plant is in the area, but which recently became controversial for its alleged multibillion-peso tax fraud and delinquencies.
The road with no name lies in Barangay Mojon, the most populated barangay in the city with nine residential subdivisions and home to some 19,000 residents. It serves as a short cut from the barangay to McArthur Highway, the national road leading south to Manila or north to Pampanga.
The road used to be a mere three-meter-wide irrigation canal-barrier that primarily served farmers tilling the vast riceland beside the northern perimeter wall of the Bulacan State University (BulSU), where the once-powerful transmitters of the Voice of the Philippines.
Some 100 hectares of the area was later owned by the government thru expropriation proceedings.
Sometime in 2000, then-President Joseph Estrada gave a meager fund to the Department of Public Works for the cementing and widening of the road to about four meters, just barely enough to accommodate a sedan car and a tricycle travelling from the opposite direction.
If two cars meet along the stretch, one must give way and settles in an “ear” located somewhere in the middle portion of the 700-meter long road.
Through the years, the new diversion road became the short-cut route towards the Poblacion to avoid the daily traffic nightmare at the Malolos Crossing where Manila-bound commuters from the towns of Plaridel, Calumpit, Hagonoy, and Paombong converge.
(To be continued)