Manila Second District Congressman Rolando Valeriano filed a House resolution (HR 2257) calling for a “comprehensive inspection and audit of bridges, flyovers, overpasses, viaducts, aqueducts, and similar structures, to determine their structural integrity, safety, and fitness for continued public use, to prevent the collapse of such public infrastructures from recurring.”
“This can be a daunting task for the DPWH, but for the safety of the public, it must be done,” Valeriano said shortly after filing the resolution.
The legislator’s proposed resolution also asks the “House Committees on Public Works and Highways, Good Government and Public Accountability, Metro Manila Development, and other pertinent committees, to conduct hearings and investigations based on the said DPWH report, and to craft legislation to address such issue, to protect the general public, and prevent such grave concern from recurring.”
“Such collapse and structural integrity issues of public infrastructures are not merely an ominous hazard to the safety of the public, but are a gross waste of scarce government funds and resources,” the member of the House Committee on Public Works and Highways added.
The Manila lawmaker said his resolution was prompted by recent incidents of bridge collapses and damage, including those that affected the Marilao Interchange Bridge on the Northern Luzon Expressway and the P1.225 Billion Cabagan-Sta Maria Bridge in Isabela Province.
He noted that the incidents in Marilao and Cabagan “follow a series of bridges collapsing or suffering from structural integrity issues”.
In recent weeks, Valeriano pointed out that at least seventeen bridges in Metro Manila will undergo retrofitting, two bridges will be replaced, and the Guadalupe Bridge will undergo anti-earthquake works.
“The seismic retrofitting of Guadalupe Bridge is the most important. P600 million is budgeted for that, with the JICA loan component at P342.589 million and the national government counterpart funding at P258.262 million,” he said in a previous statement.
Valeriano also said the Cloverleaf interchange will undergo widening and that has a budgeted cost of P400 million.
“There are also dozens of preventive maintenance works and flood control projects the DPWH has listed for 2025. We must see from DPWH how they will manage all of these and make sure they get it all done,” he stressed.
Among the other bridge damage incidents Valeriano cited in his proposed resolution include:
1. the sinking newly built, P680 million four-lane flyover in Jaro District in Iloilo City;
2. the Alibago, Enrile, Cagayan bridge, which collapsed on December 4, 2024;
3. the Magapi Bridge in Balete, Batangas on October 28, 2024;
4. the Marilog Bridge in Davao City on July 2023;
5. the Bantilan Bridge connecting Batangas and Quezon on October 29, 2022;
6. the Carlos Romulo Bridge in Bayambang, Pangasinan, on October 20, 2022;
7. the Borja Bridge in Bohol, on June 16, 2022; and
8. the Loay-Clarin Bridge, also in Bohol, on April 27, 2022.
