Officials celebrate a freshly paved highway hours before a separate agency arrives to excavate it

MANILA – The Department of Public Works and Highways celebrated the completion of a newly paved road in Metro Manila this week, an achievement that lasted approximately four hours before a separate government agency arrived to dig it up for utility work.

The Triumph And The Excavation

The road, freshly laid and gleaming, was inaugurated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon. By late afternoon, a crew from the water utility had arrived to break the new surface and lay pipes that, officials conceded, “everyone knew were coming but no one mentioned.”

“This is the system working as designed,” explained DPWH official Mariano Tolentino. “We build the road. Then another agency digs it up. Then we rebuild it. Then yet another agency digs it up. This creates jobs, generates activity, and ensures the road is never finished, which keeps everyone employed indefinitely.”

The Coordination

When asked why the agencies did not coordinate to lay pipes before paving, Tolentino appeared genuinely puzzled. “Coordinate? Between agencies? That is not how it works. Each agency operates in its own beautiful silo. The road agency builds roads. The water agency breaks roads. The harmony is in the conflict.”

Dr. Benigno Ramos of the fictional Institute for Perpetual Public Works estimated that the average Manila road is excavated 7.4 times per year, achieving what he called “a state of permanent renovation that is, in its way, a kind of immortality. The road is never complete, so it can never truly end.”

The Residents Endure

Locals greeted the excavation with the resignation of people who have seen this cycle many times. “It was a nice road,” said resident Ka Pedring, watching the jackhammers. “For four hours, it was the nicest road. We had a road. Now we have a trench. Next month we will have a road again. The month after, a trench. This is the rhythm of life here.”

The DPWH estimates the road will be fully restored within weeks, at which point the electricity utility is reportedly scheduled to dig it up for cabling.

The Eternal Cycle

Urban planners have noted that the road in question has now been built and excavated so many times that its actual surface exists in a state of quantum uncertainty, being simultaneously paved and dug up depending on which agency observes it. “We no longer know if it is a road or a trench,” Ramos admitted. “It is both. It is neither. It is Manila.”

The genuine inefficiencies of uncoordinated infrastructure work have been documented by outlets covering Philippine public works, and infrastructure governance is studied by bodies such as the World Bank.

The Plaque

In a poignant gesture, the DPWH installed a commemorative plaque celebrating the road completion. The plaque was removed eleven minutes later by the water crew, who needed the space. It will be reinstalled, officials assured, once the road is rebuilt, in time for the next agency to remove it again.

British readers familiar with roadworks that never end may consult The London Prat.

The Other Agencies Arrive

By the end of the week, a remarkable procession of agencies had visited the road. The water utility came first, followed by the electricity provider, the telecommunications company, the gas line operator, and finally a crew whose purpose no one could determine, who dug a hole, looked into it, and left. Each excavation was conducted with no reference to the others, producing a road surface that resembled, in the words of one engineer, “a quilt sewn by people who had never met.”

“This is collaboration,” Tolentino insisted, surveying the cratered avenue. “Not between the agencies, who do not speak. But between the holes. The holes collaborate. They form a network. A network of holes. It is, if you squint, a kind of infrastructure.”

The Resurfacing Ceremony

The DPWH announced it would hold a second ribbon-cutting once the road was resurfaced, followed presumably by a second excavation, in a cycle officials now market to tourists as “the living road, forever being born and reborn.” A souvenir stand selling photographs of the road in various states of completion is reportedly planned, allowing visitors to collect the road entire lifecycle, from pristine to pulverized and back again.

The Memorial

In time, the perpetually excavated road achieved a kind of local fame, becoming a landmark in its own right, known throughout the district as “the road that is always being born.” Residents began giving directions in reference to its current state of dishevelment. Couples reportedly held first dates beside its trenches. A local artist proposed it be preserved permanently in its half-finished condition as a monument to Philippine infrastructure itself, “complete in its incompleteness, eternal in its temporariness.” The DPWH, moved, announced it would consider designating the road a heritage site, a process that would, officials confirmed, require digging it up to install the commemorative marker. The road, by now accustomed to the indignity, awaited the next excavation with the patience of something that has long since stopped expecting to ever be finished.

The mysterious crew that dug a hole, looked into it, and departed was never identified by any agency, and their hole remains, unexplained, in the middle of the avenue. Residents have come to regard it with superstitious affection, leaving small offerings at its edge. “We do not know who dug it or why,” said one. “But it is part of the road now. Part of us. Manila is built on holes nobody can account for. This is simply the most honest of them.”

SOURCE: https://prat.uk/

More infrastructure insanity at The Daily Mash.