The city government on Wednesday said it has started recovering the road rights of way (RROW) from over 1,000 public and private structures, and business establishments at the different barangays that have encroached on local and national roads.

Aileen Refuerzo, city information office chief, in a phone interview on Wednesday, said more than 900 private and public structures, and 160 business establishments are the subject of the government’s recovery efforts.

She said the data is the result of the mapping conducted by the City Engineering Office (CEO) as part of the ongoing city government’s road-right-of-way (RROW) recovery program.

As a standard, city roads have a width of 10 meters while national roads’ width varies from 25 to more than 60 meters.

Currently, a big part of the city’s side of Marcos Highway and Naguilian Road has already been recovered, allowing six lanes of the road to be opened to traffic at any given time.

It can be recalled that in 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered all local government units nationwide to remove all road obstructions, whether private or public, to allow the people to have full use of the public roads, which by law are considered “beyond the commerce of men.”

She said that the CEO-Traffic and Transportation Management Division has already engaged with the owners of the structures and establishments found to have encroached on the RROW over the past several months.

Refuerzo said the engagement has yielded positive results, with the owners agreeing to self-demolish their structures and recover some of the materials.

She said that most of those already mapped are found on major thoroughfares of the city.

“Patuloy ang mapping ng city engineering office sa barangays. Hopefully matapos nila agad at ma-convince ang mga residents na alisin ang structures nila (The mapping by the city engineer’s office is continuous and hopefully they can finish the whole city as soon as possible and convince the residents to remove their encroachments),” she said.

Refuerzo said national and city roads are being prioritized in the identification of structures and establishments encroaching on local and national roads. (PNA)