BBM blames 'poor design' for bridge collapse

"Design flaw" and scrimping on costs led to the collapse of the newly opened Cabagan-Sta. Maria Bridge in Isabela, President Marcos said yesterday as he vowed to identify those responsible for the incident.

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Speaking to the media after inspecting the collapsed bridge, Marcos said the lowering of the project cost from P1.8 billion to less than P1 billion resulted in a "weak" design.

He said the budget allocated for the construction of the bridge was supposed to be P900 million, but the cost reached P1.2 billion because of the need to retrofit the structure. The retrofitting was done to address flaws detected during the construction phase.

"We have no choice. We have to go back. So we tried to lower the costs. Our savings from the (original project cost of) P1.8 billion (were) useless,” the President said. “The root cause of this is the design flaw.”

The Cabagan-Sta. Maria Bridge opened only last Feb. 1 but collapsed 26 days later after three dump trucks carrying boulders and weighing about 102 tons tried crossing the ramp. Six persons were hurt in the incident.

Marcos noted that the acceptable load for the bridge is 44 tons, way lower than the weight of the trucks that passed over it. He cited the need for more careful monitoring of load of vehicles passing over bridges.

The construction of the P1.225-billion bridge started in November 2014 during the term of the late president Benigno Aquino III. However, 90 percent of the construction work was finished during the Duterte administration, according to Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro.