EDITORIAL - Ruined landmark

It was a decade in the making, built at a cost of P1.25 billion and newly retrofitted for an additional amount of nearly P300 million before it was opened on Feb. 1. Yet last Thursday night, a section of the 990-meter-long Cabagan-Santa Maria bridge in Isabela province collapsed, sending four cars into the river and leaving at least six people injured.

Pending a full investigation, the Department of Public Works and Highways, which built the bridge, has initially pinned the blame on a dump truck transporting boulders, with a gross weight of 102 tons. DPWH officials said the bridge was still undergoing retesting and was supposed to be opened only to light vehicles.

Planning for the bridge began way back in 2014, to replace an old one that became impassable during floods. Its cost was initially placed at P639.6 million, but the DPWH doubled the estimate in 2018, reportedly to build a longer structure that would go beyond the floodplain. Two consultants were hired for the design and the contract was awarded to R.D. Interior Junior Construction owned by Ricardo Diaz Jr.

In May 2023, the DPWH found the need to retrofit the unfinished bridge, for an additional cost of P274.8 million, which was awarded to R.D. Interior – a company linked to a controversial P333-million unfinished irrigation project.

The collapse of the bridge comes on the heels of legal challenges before the Supreme Court over the padding by Congress of the DPWH budget for 2025 from what was originally proposed in the National Expenditure Program submitted by the budget department, making the amount larger than the appropriation for the entire education sector, in violation of the Constitution.

Anti-graft watchers have said DPWH projects are among the most corruption-prone, with the situation now worsening as politicians not only identify the infrastructure projects for implementation in their turfs but also pick the contractors and supply the materials. Lawmakers’ creative fund juggling in the national budget has aggravated the situation.

The corruption has left Filipinos with substandard roads that disintegrate in heavy downpour, flood control projects that don’t serve the purpose, and increasing dependence on the private sector to construct and maintain roads, which require the payment of tolls that increase the cost of logistics and consequently push up consumer prices.

Now a bridge touted to be a landmark, which opened less than a month ago, has collapsed under the weight of one truck. The truck driver has reportedly been taken in for questioning. Probers should do the same to the truck operator.

More importantly, the ones who should be questioned are the contractor, design consultants and DPWH supervisors of the bridge project.