On a stretch of highway somewhere between the rice fields and the next town, the road has been quietly taken hostage. Palay spread wide and thin like golden carpets under the summer sun, now claiming a fourth of the road’s width on either side. I cannot sit still and call it “culture” or “necessity” anymore—it’s plain dangerous, and it needs to stop more so that they put rocks around the dried grains.
Every summer, this odd ritual unfolds as predictably as the season itself: rice farmers wheel out sacks of freshly harvested palay and let gravity and heat do the rest, never mind if it’s the national highway they’ve turned into a sunbaked drying facility. At first glance, it looks harmless enough—a rural practice stretching back decades, a spectacle of agricultural persistence against poverty. But that nostalgic picture crumbles fast when you’re on a motorcycle, swerving to avoid a mat of palay while dodging an overtaking truck. In that terrifying second, you don’t see heritage—you see death knocking on the asphalt.
Why do we still allow this to go on? The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has issued memoranda time and again, prohibiting the use of roads as drying grounds. The Land Transportation Office (LTO) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) are not blind to this either. And yet, enforcement remains timid—almost apologetic. Are we afraid of offending those who cling to this practice, or are we simply too accustomed to looking the other way? Either way, our silence has emboldened a dangerous habit into a normalized violation.
Some might argue, “Where else can they dry their rice?” That’s a fair question—and a heartbreaking one because it reveals a deeper rot: the chronic lack of proper post-harvest facilities in the countryside. But what’s worse is that this same argument is used not to ask for better drying alternatives, but to justify taking over the road like it’s the last remaining option. We cannot let one injustice excuse another. Roads were meant for vehicles, not for rice grains, and certainly not for practices that gamble with the lives of innocent commuters.
It’s especially alarming how this drying method turns into a bottleneck of chaos during peak hours. With only half the road left passable, vehicles crawl through with the nervous energy of a traffic jam waiting to explode. Impatient drivers speed up to overtake, unaware that a patch of palay ahead might just cause a fatal skid. And then there are the riders—those poor riders—whose motorbikes lose balance as tires kiss the brittle grains and spin off course. When accidents happen, no one blames the rice; they blame the reckless driver or the poor visibility. But everyone knows what the real culprit is.
What’s worse is the sheer stubbornness that greets even the gentlest warnings. Try telling a palay dryer that they’re creating a hazard, and you’re met with defensiveness or mockery. Some even act like it’s a joke: “Ay, ikaw na ang may-ari ng kalsada!” As if public roads were private property and safety was optional. The casual impunity of it all is maddening. If barangay officials can’t get them to stop, and the police won’t step in unless someone’s already bleeding, then what’s left? A shrug from the sidelines and prayers that no one dies today?
I’m not here to demonize farmers. God knows how hard they work for so little. But that’s exactly why they deserve more than a crumbling system that forces them to risk other people’s lives just to dry their harvest. The government ought to invest in communal drying facilities, covered pavements, or even mobile dryers. And while we wait for that to materialize, let’s not be afraid to implement what’s already within our grasp: rules, enforcement, and yes, penalties. A fine today might just save a life tomorrow.
We don’t need a tragedy to wake us up—no child is run over, no farmer buried alongside his rice. We need the courage to say, clearly and kindly, that enough is enough. A highway must be a highway. Let’s give our farmers better options and our motorists a fair chance at getting home alive.
