News about the construction of a mega bridge that will connect Samal Island to the mainland has been around since 2018. Now, after 4 years, construction has finally begun for this 4-kilometer, PHP 23.039-billion bridge that will connect Davao City to the Island Garden City of Samal, in Mindanao.
President, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., together with Vice President Sara Duterte, and People’s Republic of China Ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian, led the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the mega bridge.
“While I am fortunate to be the sitting President when we broke ground on the project today, this project was actually begun by the previous administration of President Duterte who has been already working on this since 2018 or four years”, said President Marcos.
The scenic bridge project will have landing points from Samal Circumferential Road in Barangay Limao, IGaCoS, and Davao City in between the R. Castillo-Daang Maharlika junction.
The project identification and preparation started in May 2018 followed by a selection workshop to identify the five (5) shortlisted options to determine the best location for the bridge project. Public consultations and key informant interviews were also carried out between May 2019 to January 2020 including a discussion of concerns over the potential impact of the project on the properties and businesses of project-affected persons.
Finally, the selected alignment of the proposed bridge project as it crosses the Pakiputan Strait along the southern corridor, which has been exhaustively studied, turned out to be the most beneficial in terms of technical, financial, economic, environmental, and social impacts.
The bridge project is designed to be a four (4)-lane cable-stayed extra-dosed bridge with a total length of 3.98 kilometers including approaches with a vertical navigational clearance of up to 47 meters supported by two (2) pylons with a height of 73 meters.
