President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will make sure that heads will roll if corruption played a part in the recent collapse of the newly-constructed Cabagan-Sta. Maria Bridge in Isabela province, Malacañang said on Saturday.
“This is really going to be investigated,” Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said in a radio interview yesterday.
“If there is any trace of corruption in what happened from 2014 when the construction started until now, they must really be held accountable and heads must roll. That’s the President’s answer… They should be sent to jail,” she added.
While Castro said the collapse of the P1.2 billion bridge in Isabela was “not an ordinary case,” the government still needs to determine the real cause of the incident.
She said it is within the local government unit’s mandate to assess the integrity of the entire structure of the bridge and coordinate with the Department of Public Works and Highways.
The third span of the Cabagan-Sta. Maria Bridge collapsed at about 8 p.m. on Thursday when a dump truck carrying boulders with an estimated gross vehicle weight of about 102 tons passed over the bridge.
According to reports, six people on board four vehicles, including a child, were injured when the bridge collapsed.
The construction of the bridge started in November 2014 and was completed on Feb. 1, 2025, with a total cost of P1.22 billion, including the bridge and approaches.
The contractor of the bridge is R.D. Interior Junior Construction.
“Further analysis on the cause of failure is still on-going,” DPWH Region 2 said.
The regional office said it requested experts from the Bureau of Design and Bureau of Construction of the agency’s central office to “conduct further evaluation and assessment.”
