Benjie Magalong, version 3

After telling me about those over-priced cat’s eyes and roller ball barriers on our highways last February, Mayor Benjie Magalong told me last Wednesday about the new items on the list of overpriced highway features in the Philippines: highway solar lighting equipment.

Next time you hit the national highways, take note of those single or double headed solar lamp posts that are the latest addition to Philippine provincial roads. Based on a “Detailed Unit Price Analysis,” each solar lamp with post costs P157,956.

According to Mayor Magalong, the price for such unit costs P46,000+/-. I have bought nearly 50 pieces of different driveway and perimeter solar lamps and the consumer type lamps only range from P1,500 to P3,500.

The 10-meter post mentioned in the DUPA was P48,960. Ten meters is about 30 feet-3 inches, or one and half length of GI pipe. A steel pipe gauge 40 sells at P4,200 at the hardware. Double it and multiply it by two and you only get P16,800. Where is the COA when we need it!

Just thank God we have Magalong and please pray for him because he is now being used as a diversionary target by Malacañang.

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Last March 26, 2025, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano conducted a Senate inquiry on the collapse of the Cabangan Bridge in Isabela that happened approximately a month before. When asked for the inspection report, Senator Cayetano was told that a team had just been dispatched to the site.

When Cayetano raised the question if sub-standard steel was used, the secretary of the DPWH shared his knowledge on tensile strength, elasticity or stretch of steel bars, and metallurgy. It was the best answer, considering the DPWH had not managed to collect sufficient sample/evidence for testing.

In contrast, a 30-story unfinished structure totally collapsed in Bangkok, Thailand on March 28, 2025 and by April 1 initial findings were already available online, determining that sampling suggested sub-standard steel was used and many violations had taken place.

By coincidence, that same week, I shared the feedback from our readers, one of whom asked for support for the local steel industry that is suffering due to the fact that majority of steel used in local construction projects is imported from China.

But that is not all we import from China that is steel related. One of my friends advised me to research “Induction Furnaces” and the export of phased out induction furnaces from China to the Philippines.

On the surface, an AI generated report says that “China banned induction furnaces in 2017 as part of a crackdown on low-quality steel production, environmental concerns and safety issues.”

Unlike modern high efficiency furnaces, induction furnaces do not efficiently burn, melt or remove impurities and foreign materials when melting scrap metal, which is the primary source of material for steel making with IFs. The resulting steel bars and rods are compromised by such impurities, which create weak links.

As a result, China phased out the use of induction furnaces, beginning with the ban on the sale of scrap metal to these facilities and operators. This was followed by province-wide inspections and audits of all induction furnace operations and their permanent shut down in 2017.

So, where did all these obsolete phased-out equipment go? A lot of them are in our “backyard” in the Philippines and Indonesia, where they are used for producing rebars or steel bars for many houses, buildings, etc. While regional steel industry organizations or watchdogs know where the junk went, we don’t.

In effect, we are using substandard furnaces to produce substandard steel bars and end up with substandard buildings and residences. How did that equipment even get past the Bureau of Customs, DENR and the DTI if they were phased out with extreme prejudice in China?

Reality and political practicality almost always drive every administration to find ways and means to provide affordable goods for Filipinos. This is why past administrations have eased up on importation even of construction materials such as cement and steel.

But is it worth letting Filipinos die if and when buildings collapse because the materials were substandard? Having been in several construction sites in the past, I have come across adulterated cement in the province.

You can see the difference and it crumbles once it dries, But steel bars? You won’t see the truth until it’s too late.

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First of all, allow me to greet my father, the late Louie Beltran, a Divine Happy Birthday! Dad would have been 89 years of age, and he is missed by family and his readers who constantly remind me that they are “fans of Louie.”

I recently viewed a video about the need to talk, write and remember our dear departed loved ones because such acts remind others about their lives, their work and their legacy. “Our words keep them alive.”

People may honor you, admire you, love you even while you’re alive. But we all know that it is a diminishing reality. During the first three years after your death, people miss you, talk about you, recall your views and actions on issues. But by the fifth year, you are generally a “coincidental memory” in gatherings.

Even those who gave their lives for the nation are remembered mostly because legislation and institutions have made it part of compliance. Sadly, wicked people go to extremes to erase the legacy and the memory of others, purely because of politics and ideology.

Yes, let us keep their memory alive, not in statues or legal tender that can be torn, defaced or redesigned. Let us tell their stories, the ones they told us from generation to generation and the life they lived. Let us make it an inheritance for the next generation.

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E-mail: Utalk2ctalk@gmail.com