PBBM says cost-cutting, overloading contributed to bridge collapse
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Thursday attributed the collapsed Cabagan-Sta. Maria bridge in Isabela province to its “flawed, poor and really weak” design as well as the infrastructure project’s slashed budget.
“This is the only suspension bridge I have seen without cables,” Mr. Marcos said as he visited the collapsed bridge yesterday.
The bridge, originally designed as a suspension bridge, spans 990 meters and consists of 12 arches and nine spans of prestressed concrete girders.
“It is a design flaw. The design is wrong…The steel collapsed. If it’s cable-stayed, it would not have happened. Then the anchoring of the support – it’s just at the bottom. It should be at the top, all the way up,” the President said.
“The whole process—it’s okay, the contractor followed the plan, built everything to specifications. The problem is, the specifications were wrong…That is exactly where it failed. The steel and concrete alone could not support the load,” he added.
President Marcos said the bridge project was initially allocated a budget of P1.8 billion, but cost-cutting measures reduced it by under P1 billion.
“It was reduced by less than P1 billion to make it cheaper. They reduced the P1.8 billion, but it’s useless. Now, we’re going to spend again. We’re going to replace it again. It’s like we will build something new again….We tried to save money, but in the end, we’ll have to spend even more,” he said.
The bridge was designed to carry light vehicles only with a maximum load of 44 tons, but two overloaded trucks, each weighing more than 100 tons, were on it at the time of the collapse, the President said.
“Those trucks should never have been on the bridge…If the limit is 44 tons and you load it with over 200 tons, it’s no surprise this happened,” he added.
Asked who would be held accountable for the collapse of the bridge, Mr. Marcos said he would focus first on fixing the problem.
“You know, I always have the saying: Fix the problem, not (prioritize the) blame. Let’s fix the problem first,” he said.
“Believe me, you’ll find out who is responsible. Who is responsible is basically who made the design because the design is poor. And then also, those trucks should never have been on the bridge,” he added.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline: “Marcos inspects collapsed Isabela bridge; cites design flaw”