The Benguet bus crash hits so close to home – I’ve travelled that route many times in my life, and that city is home – that I think it’s best for me to keep this somewhat experimental.
Somehow there are always those places where the concrete breaks. The eroded section of the road is closed, surrounded by bamboo stakes and caution tape, while the construction crew starts repairing the road. Only one lane of the highway remains open to traffic. No one really took to repaving the highways; just the old ways of kabiti. That meant hauling the quarried rock over to the eroded area, building a reinforced wall to hold the new pavement, hoping that everything holds.
At least the old Marcitas buses – the ones Father jokes about – are gone. The air-conditioned buses ply the Marcos Highway – Palispis-Aspiras, whatever one calls it these days – route, while the top-loaded jeepneys, private cars, and buses negotiate the curves of Naguilian Road.