By DANNY O. SAGUN

HAD Dagupan city engineer Virginia Rosario come to our Pantongtongan Tayo public affairs program last Tuesday over Radyo ng Bayan, she could have clarified issues surrounding the controversial stoppage of construction work at the Magsaysay area as well as other burning issues involving her office.

We could not fault her representative, engineer Ogie Ventenilla, for his very cautious general answers to our questions. Rosario was reportedly scheduled to attend a meeting at City Hall that day so that she instead sent Ogie to our weekly radio program.

We learned however that our other guest, district engineer Rodolfo Dion, was also scheduled to attend a meeting at city hall that very day (one and the same meeting?) but he first honored our invitation. In fact he arrived at the station earlier than we did.

As head of his office, the district engineer gave right away answers to questions posed by this writer, co-anchor Mader Helen and station manager Bernie. There was no hesitation on his part.
Ogie understandably could not do that especially when we asked him about the Magsaysay eco-tourism pet project of the Lim administration which was eventually shelved by the Fernandez administration due to alleged irregularities.

Next time, we hope Engr. Virgie could spare us a precious little of her timegive to give at least a little time for us.
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The stairs of the pedestrian overpasses rising in several busy corners in the city are wide open leaving ladies in skirts to likely skip using them for the reason we do not need to elaborate here. Dion was quick to point out that most women now use pants instead of dress.

He may be right but there are many who proudly use skirts (mini-skirts for some) in their daily work like our sales ladies, office workers and many more. Also include high school students in their daily uniforms.

Boy, the soft-spoken engineer, obliging to the request of having the stairs – sides and underneath – fully covered to deter those with malicious dirty minds, said he would relay the matter to the contractor. He admitted though that the design was just that as we noted in the already utilized overpass fronting the Dagupan City National High School.

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I think time has yet to come when those overpasses will be fully used by our pedestrians. The one in barangay Tapuac is practically useless even during rush hours or at class dismissal time. Only a few bother to climb the stairs. Others just while away their time there.

The P4 million or so budget for each of the projects appears unjustified as of now. Two to three years may have to pass before everybody gets used to ever using them. But without discipline (many don’t cross the streets in designated pedestrian lanes), we don’t think those infra are worth the taxpayers’ money spent on them.

We are also curious why the stairs are just on one side at each end. Why not on both sides to make entry and exit easier? Nagtipid ba or, again – it was designed that way?