SAN AGUSTIN, Isabela—Mayor Cesar Mondala has prioritized road infrastructure projects for this town, in particular concreting farm-to-market roads that cover the barangays of Calaocan, Rang-ay, Panang, Limmatan, Masaya Centro and Santo Niño.
In an interview, Mondala told the Standard this was a means to rehabilitate the “postwar cart tracks” in the town under the national government’s financial assistance to disadvantaged municipalities.
The Philippine Rural Development Program had previously doled out P35 million for the concreting of barangay roads in Masaya Centro to San Jose and Masaya Sur to Bergonisa, said the mayor, who won a new term in the May 13 elections.
Box culverts were put up in the barangay roads of Santo Niño to Sitio Nursery to avoid the seasonal flooding from the adjacent Cagayan river, also funded from the PRDP fund sourced out by Mondala. The 3.5-kilometer road concreting was completed recently, he said.
Despite being politically handicapped by a lawsuit at the Ombudsman pushed by former Deputy Speaker Giorgidi Aggabao over what Mondala said was “simple misconduct” that led to a 90-day preventive suspension, the mayor said he managed to “implement (his) executive discretionary fund” wisely.
This included completing the concrete fence of the municipal hall’s building, procure a 2.8-hectare lot for the local government, programed the construction of commercial slaughterhouse, built a new wet market at the market square, and completed the bleachers in the municipal auditorium, he said.
The mayor also had comfort rooms constructed to make the town auditorium more tourist friendly, as it is the annual venue of the Nuang Festival, when local tourists, farmers and students from state universities in the region come to San Agustin to have their carabaos artificially inseminated from the Mugga buffalos raised by local farmers.
The perennially overflowing Cagayan River often floods the town’s roads and houses, so to maintain road conditions and maintain their all-weather state, Mondala said he has bought a grader and a loader for San Agustin, along with two new tractors with rotators to offset the town’s broken-down tractors.
Farmers who need to plow their fields can rent the tractors, thus creating income for the local government.
During Typhoon “Lawin” in 2016, San Agustin was badly hit. To prevent similar damages, Mondala constructed an evacuation center within the local government compound and two women’s crisis buildings, apart from purchasing one new ambulance, one rescue vehicle, a van and a pick-up truck for search and rescue, and a dump truck to be delivered after the elections.
Mondala said he also managed to construct a temporary bridge in Bergonisa village going to Sinaoangan Norte and a concreting of 300 meters of Barangay Road from Rang-ay to Bergonisa to replace the old foot bridge that went down during the onslaught of Typhoon “Ondoy” in 2009.