When DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon dared to take the overland trip from Manila to Naga City to experience firsthand the lubak–lubak reality of our roads, my first reaction was relief—relief that, at last, someone in power might be forced to confront what Bicolanos have long endured. Every pothole jolted the spine; every delay was measured not in minutes but in body aches.

Coming as it did in the middle of a public works scandal and ongoing congressional investigations, however, the optics were impossible to miss. Credit grabbers surfaced, defenders mobilized, and with 2028 quietly looming, no one could plausibly claim the gesture was politically neutral—least of all in Camarines Sur, where roads have never been just roads.

For many Bicolanos like me, especially those who regularly travel through Camarines Sur, land travel remains a physical ordeal. This is not exaggeration. It is muscle memory. It is the stiffness that settles hours after the trip, the mental calculation of whether one can endure another overnight trip by bus or private vehicle, the weary resignation captured in the phrase, “ganito talaga.”

The dare did not come from just anyone. It was issued by former Naga City mayor and now first-term Third District Congressman Nelson Legacion. Thus was born what quickly became known as the Legacion–Dizon road trip—an episode that dominated local conversations and briefly thrust our battered highway into national consciousness.

Ironically, it took this very spectacle to remind many—or inform some for the first time—that the Maharlika Highway By-Pass in Camarines Sur is also officially called the Andaya Highway.

On January 16, 2004, Republic Act No. 9234 was passed renaming the entire segment of the Quirino Highway By-Pass after Rolando “Nonoy” Andaya Jr., former Camarines Sur congressman, later Budget Secretary and one of the most influential political figures in the province from the 1990s to the 2010s. The act followed his death and reflected a familiar Philippine practice: memorializing politicians through public infrastructure. We have seen similar impulses before, including the controversial attempt to rename the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture after Luis Villafuerte Sr.

One cannot help but ask why long-serving congressmen so often succeed in attaching their family names to institutions built and maintained with public funds.

Andaya Highway, administratively referred to as N68 — branches southbound from its junction with Maharlika Highway (AH26) in Tabugon, Santa Elena, Camarines Norte. It then cuts through the Quezon towns of Calauag, Guinayangan, and Tagkawayan, before entering Camarines Sur via Del Gallego, Ragay, Lupi, and Sipocot, where it reconnects with Maharlika Highway at the segment to/from Daet.

Bus drivers and commuters familiar with the Andaya Highway may mistakenly still call it “Maharlika.” The name lives on in transport routes, accident reports, and everyday directions. For ordinary travelers, the road never felt “new” enough to deserve a new name. It still floods, still bottlenecks, still turns long journeys into endurance tests. Andaya was—and has remained—forever lubak-lubak.

The renaming was controversial from the start. Coming in the same year as Andaya’s highly contentious death, many viewed it as premature and politicized, heavy with unresolved questions. Critics argued that the road predated Andaya by decades and carried national—not merely provincial—significance. Others warned that such acts blur the line between public service and personal legacy, reinforcing the dangerous idea that infrastructure is owned rather than shared.

This controversy cannot be separated from Camarines Sur’s long-running rivalry between two political dynasties: the Andayas and the Villafuertes.

This rivalry was never simply personal. It was structural—a decades-long contest for control of the province, fought through congressional districts, budget allocations, and access to national power. The Villafuertes built dominance through governorships, municipal machinery, and territorial control. The Andayas rose later but rapidly, drawing strength from Congress, national agencies, and above all, budgetary leverage from Manila.

It was a clash of machinery versus money, of ground power versus fiscal influence. In that struggle, roads—especially the Maharlika and Andaya Highways—became symbols of political ownership. Concrete turned into campaign material. Asphalt became legacy.

Seen in this light, Vince Dizon’s overland trip to Bicol on Maharlika Highway was never just about potholes. It was about reclaiming narrative control over a road long politicized, renamed, claimed, and contested. It was governance staged as spectacle, accountability packaged as performance.

Yes, many of us will ride the bus to Naga again. But the road now carries more than traffic—it carries the accumulated weight of political theater. And for Bicolanos who have endured this highway for decades, the question remains painfully simple: when will the politics finally end—and the road finally get fixed?

This opinion piece was first published in the author’s column “Tabang Bikol Movement” in Bicol Mail on January 23, 2026. The header image shows a battered section of Andaya Highway (credit: Nelson Legacion)

About the author

EVITA JIMENEZ-TUAZON is the Founding Chair of the Tabang Bikol Movement, Board Chair of the Mariners Polytechnic Colleges Foundation in Bicol, and a Board Member of CenPEG, a policy study center where she served as Founding Director. An educator, social entrepreneur, and advocate for culture and the arts, health, and the environment, she pursued her undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman and writes a regular column for Bicol Mail. In 2020, she was recognized as Outstanding Volunteer for Region V by PNVSCA-NEDA, with TBM later honored as Outstanding Non-Profit Volunteer Organization (2023).