LESS than a month before the end of the Duterte administration, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has announced that the Panguil Bay Bridge, which will be Mindanao’s longest bridge, is now halfway to being completed.
DPWH Acting Secretary Roger Mercado made the announcement Thursday after inspecting the site last Wednesday, June 1, 2022 with Undersecretary and Build, Build, Build Chief Implementer Emil Sadain, DPWH Undersecretary for Mindanao Operations Eugenio Pipo Jr., Lanao del Norte Governor Imelda Quibranza-Dimaporo and Lanao del Norte, 2nd District Representative Abdullah Dimaporo.
In his briefing, Undersecretary Sadain said the project had achieved 51.4 percent completion, after recovering from delays incurred in the delivery of equipment and materials amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic in 2020.
The 3.17-kilometer two-way, two-lane Panguil Bay Bridge will link Tangub City in Misamis Occidental to the Municipality of Tubod in Lanao del Norte, cutting the travel time between the two areas to just seven minutes from the current two and a half hours.
It currently takes commuters one hour and 30 minutes to traverse this route via roll-on roll-off vessel and two to two and a half hours via land travel through Panguil Bay road, the DPWH said in a statement.
The bridge is also expected to shorten land travel from Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities to Tangub City and the northern Zamboanga Region.
The ₱7.37 billion project in Northern Mindanao is funded by a loan agreement between the Philippine government and Korean Export Import Bank.
The bridge is targeted for completion by the end of 2023.
The Panguil Bay Bridge project is among the 119 infrastructure flagship projects under the “Build, Build, Build” Program of the Duterte administration.
President Rodrigo Duterte led the groundbreaking for the bridge project in November 2018.
Duterte leaves office on June 30, 2022.