THE San Juanico Bridge is the country’s longest bridge – 2.16 kilometers – connecting Samar and Leyte across the San Juanico Strait. It was built at a cost of P140 million from 1969 to 1973 during the Marcos administration by a Philippine construction firm together with Japanese engineers.
All these years, it has stood as a magnificent S-shaped structure over the sea between the two East Visayan islands, serving an important role in their economies and tourism. Nothing of equal significance has been built since then, but now the administration of President Duterte has decided to build no less than eight more of these huge bridges to link the sprawling islands of this archipelago.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III announced last week that the bridges will connect the country from north to south, so it will be possible to travel from Luzon to Mindanao by motor vehicle. An 18.2-kilometer bridge will connect Luzon and Samar, which is already connected to Leyte via San Juanico. Then a 20-kilometer bridge or underwater tunnel will connect Leyte to northeast Mindanao.
From Leyte in East Visayas, there will the following bridges to West Visayas – 18 kilometers from Leyte to Lapinig island, one kilometer from Lapinig to Bohol, 24.5 kilometers from Bohol to Cebu, 5.5 kilometers from Cebu to Negros, 12.3 kilometers from Negros to Guimaras, and 5.7 kilometers from Guimaras to Panay.
That’s a total of 105.2 kilometers of bridges across seas, not mere rivers, at a total cost of P269.19 billion. There will be new roads and bridges to these bridges. Already approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) are a New Bohol Airport, a New Cebu International Container Port, improvement of the Iloilo International Airport, and the Bacolod-Silay International Airport.
All over the Philippines, infrastructure projects have been planned and approved, including a major railroad system around Mindanao. The eight inter-island bridges planned by the national government are significant not just as development projects enhancing the economies of the connected provinces but also as a unifying factor physically connecting the long separated islands that make up our archipelago.
Over the centuries, our separation into islands has led to ethnic differences that often broke out into tribal warfare, in sea raids particularly in the south; that manifested themselves in political rivalries, in suspicions and actual acts of discrimination – such as the continuing complaint of some Mindanao leaders that they have been left behind by “imperial” Manila.
The eight bridges of the Duterte administration plus the one of the Marcos administration will physically connect many major islands that have always been separated by seas. With their people freely able to move around from one island to another, there will be less consciousness of their differences, less need to break up the country into federal republics or regions, a greater sense of one-ness as a Filipino nation.
