Phl stopped seeking SF funding for bridge project in 2024

There was never any active loan agreement from South Korea to fund a multi-billion-peso bridge project in the Philippines, according to two departments, which say the Philippines had only agreed to exploratory talks.

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“There is no such loan,” Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III told Philstar. com in a phone interview. “We did not approach them. There was no loan agreement proposed in the first place.”

The Department of Finance also confirmed that talks between the Philippines and South Korea were terminated by the DAR last year due to disagreements over project scope and technical details.

Statements from the two departments came a day after South Korean President Lee Jae-myung announced that he had ordered proceedings for the supposed loan to stop, following a report that said the project had been revived under pressure from a controversial Korean lawmaker despite being initially rejected over corruption concerns.

The report by South Korean media outlet Hankyoreh 21 said the Philippines’ Department of Finance submitted a $439-million loan application to Korea’s Economic Development Cooperation Fund in November 2023 for the “PBBM Rural Modular Bridge Project.”