Firm wants to build bridge from Cebu City to Cordova

CEBU, Philippines - Another entity is joining the race to bag the project to construct a bridge from Cebu City to Cordova town.

Malayan Integrated Industries Corporation is seeking the help of Mayor Michael Rama in its bid to construct the third bridge that would connect mainland Cebu and Mactan Island.

MIIC president and general manager Pablo Villaber yesterday met with Rama and asked for the mayor’s endorsement of his proposal.

Villaber said the bridge is a component of the MIIC’s proposed 3,500-hectare reclamation project in Cordova.

The entire proposal, he said, aims to help convert the town into a city in the next five to ten years.

If realized, the 995-meter bridge, which will cost P8 billion, will rise from Cebu City to Shell Island then to Cordova, said Villaber.

Villaber said he is reviving the reclamation project, allegedly the first of this magnitude, since this has been approved by former President Fidel V. Ramos in 1996. The reclamation project will cost P70 billion, he said.

“Wala na ni’y problema ka yang taga-Cordova ang mahimong beneficiary ani na project,” Villaber said in an interview at the Cebu City Hall yesterday.

Villaber gave Rama a letter about the project. A copy was also furnished to President Benigno Aquino III, National Economic and Development Authority, and the Department of Public Works and Highways.

Rama said he has referred the matter to the City Legal Office and the Administration Department.

Asked what he thinks about the MIIC’s project, which will supposedly compete with a similar project that he is supporting, Rama did not categorically answer but said that the city has an open mind regarding the effort to construct a third bridge.

“The basic concern here is ma-resolve ang problema sa traffic. What’s urgent is we need to have a third bridge,” the mayor said.

Villaber said they will start the actual construction of the bridge in six months as soon as they can secure an Environmental Compliance Certificate from the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources.

He said the project is set to be finished in three to five years.

From Shell Island, Villaber said a six-lane road passing through Cordova’s Barangay Day-as, Barangay Buagsong, Barangay Poblacion, Barangay Gabi and Barangay Looc of Lapu-Lapu City will be constructed.

Villaber said that, among others, MIIC has already partnered with SM Land Holdings and the Korean group Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd for the project.

The FREEMAN tried to contact representatives from SM Land Holdings for their reaction on the project, but they were not immediately available.

Last week, Villaber said he has already signed a joint venture agreement with One-Earth Project Management Ventures Inc., a contractor of filling materials.

He said there is already no problem with the municipal government of Cordova regarding their joint venture on the reclamation project.

But in a recent interview with The FREEMAN, Cordova Mayor Adelino Sitoy said he had no idea about the joint venture agreement.

It was learned that in 2008, the Municipal Council of Cordova passed a resolution invalidating the contract between the council and the MIIC for the project.

A fishermen’s group in Cordova is also strongly opposed to the proposed reclamation project. — /LPM