San Miguel Holdings Corp., the infrastructure unit of conglomerate San Miguel Corp., said it completed in just six months the construction of a new bridge along the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road, or STAR Tollway.
The 231-meter long Sabang Bridge, which connects Ibaan and Batangas, the last two major exits of the Star Tollway, was found damaged during a routine inspection in December last year, following the onslaught of typhoon “Nina.”
The damaged section, spanning 60 meters and located right above a 55-meter deep ravine, had to be demolished to make way for a new one.
“This was an especially challenging project. Given the amount of work that had to be done, the level of difficulty in executing it, and the need to complete it in the shortest time possible, we’ve had to invest significantly to utilize technologies that are new or—to the best of our knowledge—rarely or have never been used in local infrastructure,” San Miguel president and chief operating officer Ramon Ang said.
This included bringing in demolition experts to remove the old bridge. The method is similar to those used in other countries to implode condemned buildings and other structures with high precision in just a matter of minutes.
Meanwhile, to construct the new bridge, the company utilized the “unibridge” system, which makes use of modular, pre-engineered bridges.
The methods used were “expensive” but offered the best in safety and the shortest construction time possible.
“Overall, this project shows that with advanced technologies available to us today, and with the expertise of Filipino engineers, we’re more than equipped and capable of undertaking the massive infrastructure projects that our country needs—and delivering these on time,” Ang said. “We only need to overcome the challenges brought on by the usual impediments to large-scale infrastructure projects, such as alignment or right-of-way issues.”