Government opens roads

to areas in ASG incursion

TAGBILARAN CITY, April 12 (PIA)--Last year, kids touch and gape at the idling wheel-type Armored Personnel Carriers (APC) reaching areas in their barangay.

This year, they could finally get to see and know other trucks and cars as for the first time, an access road will get to their barangay center and make these possible.

"Our kids can only get to see a truck up close when we bring them to the market, or on some occasions, to the church," admits a young mother who has to take the river route which is the quicker access to the barangay.

"Getting close to these vehicles is something new to them," she added.

A new 4.5 kilometer road would be opened from Barangay Datag to Napo, this would make the isolated barangay finally accessible by land vehicles.

Accessible by foot through rugged treacherous foot trails from Barangay Datag which in itself is over 4 kilometers from the highway, or by paddle boats upriver, the new road opening would finally bring vehicles and government services closer to the people.

The new access road would also allow the farmers in the barangay to bring their farm products to the town markets, announced Queenie Melody Fullante during the ceremonial lighting of the new roads billboard held in time for the launching Security Always For Everyone Bohol (SAFE Bohol)  April 12.  

Napo, comes from a local term for a patch of land that has become isolated either by means of a body of water or inaccessible by land making it like an island (na po) is a barangay in this town that can only be easier accessible by boat through the Inabanga River than through its foot trails.

The absence of access roads also placed the barangay among the town's most backward, and puts it among the indigents, deprived of the services available to those barangays with easier access roads.

Maybe due to its isolated state and the tough access, members of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf slipped through the quiet town and into the isolated calm of Napo.

When the government forces attempted to root out the bandits last year, a river ambush cost the life of young soldiers that responders have to call for aerial artillery and air support to detach the bandits from their sniping perches.

Without the necessary roads which could be crucial in transporting troops and reinforcements, government troops in Napo had to contend with APCs to escape from enemy snipers.

The presence of the APCs during the operations allowed the Napo kids to gape at the four wheeled monster vehicles.

Other than Napo, also getting the government infrastructure attention is the dilapidated access road to Barangay Tan-awan in nearby Tubigon town.

Ta-awan was among the barangays in Bohol where a member of the scattered terrorist stragglers hid and where he was apprehended by government authorities.

A barangay straddled atop the Tubigon mountains, Tan-awan is the town's highest peak and affords its residents incomparable panorama of the town, its island barangays and nearby island province of Cebu.

But the getting to see the view has its access as its downside.

Governor Edgar Chatto shows DILG Usec Educardo Año the new road access from Datag to Napo in Inabanga. This new road would be the first traversable by land vehicle to Napo, a barangay whose access from time immemorial has been by boats when at high tide or through treacherous foot trails. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)