After several months of repair work on the decades-old bridge connecting Samar and Leyte.
On Friday, December 12, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. inspected the San Juanico Bridge in Tacloban City as it has been partially reopened to two-way traffic under a 15-ton load limit.
This, as the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) announced the completion of portal shoring works that provide temporary support to the existing structure for the retrofitting activity to safely proceed without additional strain on the bridge.
With that, motorists are now allowed to continue using the bridge while the permanent strengthening works are being carried out.
During his visit, the chief executive said that the full repair will be finished in 2026. At the same time, he emphasized the need to ensure proper maintenance of vital infrastructure to avoid socio-economic disruption to affected communities.
“I’m very happy that I’m able to say now, it is very close to our deadline. And so, the San Juanico Bridge is partially finished. It will be finished next year so that the bridge will be able to take again the load of 33 tons going both ways,” he said.
“I hope that this serves as a lesson to all future administrators in government, to all government workers who have anything to do with this. The retrofit costs us PhP1.1 billion. That is money that we could have saved if proper maintenance was carried out on San Juanico,” he added.
PBBM’s visit comes half-a-year after he last visited the San Juanico Bridge, as well as Amandayehan Port in Basey, Samar last June to oversee government response efforts to the emergency closure of the bridge, which has disrupted transportation and trade across Eastern Visayas.
At that time, the chief executive directed the DPWH to increase the load limit to 12 metric tons before the end of December and underscored the need to expedite the rehabilitation timeline for the vital link between Samar and Leyte.
In spite of its downsides, Marcos said back then that the San Juanico Bridge’s shutdown was necessary to ensure public safety after a structural inspection uncovered severe damage in the unseen parts of the bridge due to decades of neglect.
Furthermore, the President noted ths e DPWH’s annual budget for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) should have covered the regular maintenance of San Juanico Bridge and other important infrastructure.
“Kaya again, I hope that this is a lesson to us and of all of those in the future whose responsibility will be to look after our thoroughfares, to always remember the experience of San Juanico Bridge that if we had only maintained it, we would have saved a great deal of problems,” the President furthered on Friday.
The San Juanico Bridge was constructed in 1969 and opened in July 1973. Spanning 2.15 kilometers, it remains a critical lifeline for Eastern Visayas.