Unsafe bridges

More billions in taxpayers' money have gone down the drain — this time in Cagayan province.

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Last Monday afternoon, the Piggatan Bridge in Alcala town crumpled purportedly under the combined weight of three truck haulers.

Fortunately, no one was killed, but seven people were injured.

The destruction of the bridge, which links the provincial capital Tuguegarao to the northern towns of Cagayan, has also seriously disrupted mass transportation and supply delivery in the province.

On Feb. 28 this year in nearly Isabela province, the newly opened Cabagan-Santa Maria Bridge in Santa Maria town also collapsed as a truck transporting rocks passed through it. As in this disaster, the collapse of the Piggatan Bridge has been quickly blamed on the passage of the three supposedly overloaded trucks, each reportedly weighing from 40 to 50 tons, two of them transporting palay and the third steel.