Traveling along dusty country roads nowadays, one misses him. It was always a he never a she, unlike the metroaides in the cities. The sexual discrimination was in this case deliberate since his task involved the constant use of male muscle, as the tools of his trade would indicate. In the wheelbarrow which he pushed ahead of him, could be found the following: a shovel, a pick, a bolo, maybe also a broom. For he was a one-man road maintenance institution. He was the caminero.
The term “caminero” derives from the Spanish “camino” for street or road. Not so long ago, rural towns employed camineros on a routine basis. One caminero would be assigned to a stretch of road a kilometer or more long depending on the resources of the town. Rain or shine, he would care for and maintain his territory to keep it passable for the traveler, be he on foot or riding on a vehicle. You could rarely see a pothole for long where there was a caminero on duty nor could you feel one beneath as you traveled along such a road and the roadbed was seldom flooded or eroded during rainy days as he also tended the ditches on either side of the road. He also usually planted shrubs and tree seedlings along the edges of the road to inhibit the growth of weeds and prevent erosion. He was thus also an environmental enhancer.
I cannot place exactly when the last caminero retired. Was it the 60’s or the 70’s? Certainly, they were no longer around in the 80’s. Why they just went out of existence. I am not very sure either. Was it because money to keep them in the payroll ran out? Or was it because they were considered inefficient and therefore, to continue to employ them would have been a waste of scant resources?
What better alternative have the powers – that – be decided to put in their place? Are the roads now better maintained, the potholes and the mud puddles gone? Is every peso for public infrastructure now efficiently utilized so that cost per kilometer is also appreciably reduced?
On the contrary, the roads serving towns away from the main highways are as bad, if not worse. It seems though that the work that the camineros used to do has now been contracted to individuals or groups for millions of pesos, and rebidded on a regular basis every calendar year. And yet we do not see this translated into first-class rural infrastructures.
Should we not rethink this policy and put the camineros back on the road, with a slightly better pay and still spend much, much less but have better road maintenance year – round. Where roads cannot yet be paved with concrete, the caminero is a must. In the distant likelihood that all roads of this nation are all in concrete, he can still be put to productive employment such as keeping ditches unclogged and the roadways beautiful. After all, he needs his job, lowly and poorly compensated though it maybe, for he must continue to feed himself and provide for his family as well. And there will be that much less unemployment in our midst.
It is election time once again and in less than three months all of us registered voters will troop to the polling precincts. We will have another chance to hope for change in our democratic system through the different candidates offering themselves for public service. Let us choose well and vote wisely.
And since this is also the time of Lent, may our prayers and sacrifices give us deep spiritual enlightenment that will enable us to discern beyond their public posturings and speeches who among those vying for the different political positions in our democracy possess the required attributes for honest and consistent public service.
