DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 23 April)—The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) is gearing up for the construction works of the controversial China-funded P23-billion bridge that would connect Samal Island and this city to go full blast.
Workers prepare the site for the Samal Island-Davao City bridge’s foundation in Barangay Limao, Samal Island on Monday (22 April 2024). MindaNews photo by BONG S. SARMIENTO
Engr. Joweto Tulaylay, project manager of the Samal Island – Davao City Connector (SIDC) Project, said the bridge’s civil construction work is set to start “by the last week of April or first week of May.”
“We will start with the onshore construction of the foundation of the bridge,” he told reporters on Monday, Earth Day, in mixed Filipino and English.
He said the project contractor, the Chinese government-owned China Bridge and Road Corporation (CBRC), has started clearing some of the sites acquired by the government.
The bridge’s landing site on the Davao City side is located in Barangay Hizon, while on the Samal Side is in Barangay Limao, right beside the Paradise Island Park and Beach Resort.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian led the groundbreaking for the bridge in October 2022.
In a briefing at the DPWH-11 office here, Tulaylay admitted that constructing the Davao-Samal bridge is a “complex project,” apparently referring to the offshore works that environmentalists warned could destroy a rich coral reef called “Paradise Reef” on the Samal Island side.
The Paradise Reef, measuring 300 meters long and 50 meters wide, hosts 79 species of hard corals, 26 species of soft corals, and at least 100 species of reef fish, according to a study commissioned by the Paradise Island Park and Beach Resort.
A crawler crane owned by a Chinese construction company is parked in Barangay Limao, Samal Island, on Monday (22 April 2024) as construction work for the Samal Island-Davao City bridge begins. MindaNews photo by BONG S. SARMIENTO
The reef system is just a few meters from the shores of the resort, clearly visible during low tide. There is even no need for scuba diving to see the underwater world; just by using a mask and snorkel and one can see the beauty of the marine life, as this reporter had tried.
Julian Rodriguez, Paradise Resort manager, said they are not opposed to the construction of a bridge linking the island and Davao City.
“What we are opposing is the current alignment on the island because the construction would destroy the corals that have been around for hundreds of years already,” he said.
Tulaylay said the bridge’s landing site at Costa Marina Beach Resort, which is beside Paradise Beach Resort, had been certified by the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources “ as having corals in poor condition.”
The bridge’s landing site is part of the property owned by the Lucas-Rodriguez family. In January 2023, a writ of possession was issued by a local court, which allowed the DPWH to utilize the land where the bridge would land.
Rodriguez said their lawyers filed last year an appeal before the Supreme Court to issue a restraining order against the bridge’s construction on its current alignment.
Marine biologist Filipina Sotto, who conducted a study commissioned by the Lucas-Rodriguez family in 2019, said the government’s chosen landing site has a healthy coral population.
It has a live coral coverage (LCC) of 36.3 percent, much better than the other rejected site proposed in 2016 by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which has an LCC of 7.8 percent, the study showed.
The proposed Samal Island-Davao City Connector (SIDC) bridge project. Illustration from DPWH bidding document.
Another volunteer marine biologist, John Michael Lacson, told this reporter last year that Paradise Island is a “precious coral garden with significant importance to the marine biodiversity around Samal Island.”
Lacson strongly recommended rerouting the bridge to save the reef ecosystem.
“Paradise Reef is a spawning site—kind of like a bank that keeps hundreds of different kinds of precious coins that were collected throughout history. Spawning is when the bank multiplies those coins and dispenses them into the ocean. The future of coral reefs on the western side of Samal Island depends on this bank,” he said.
Tulaylay said they would minimize the impact of the bridge’s construction to the marine ecosystem at Paradise Reef by using a crane to lift materials in shallow offshore waters.
“If we use barges to bring in construction materials at the shallow portion, there would be huge destruction to the seabed,” he said.
According to the project’s final environmental impact analysis (EIA) prepared by the advisory group Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong Ltd. and published in October 2020, the Samal-Davao bridge is classified as an “environmental critical project” because of its potential significant impacts on the local marine ecosystem.
“The largest potential impact foreseen would be during construction,” the EIA says.
A small group of journalists from Metro Manila and Mindanao, organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, saw workers preparing the site on Samal Island for the construction of the bridge’s foundation on Monday.
Tulaylay said that steel frameworks, about three meters wide each, would be planted 80 meters below the seabed and 54 meters under land surface to serve as foundations for the 3.98-kilometer, 4-lane bridge. The steel framework will be filled up with concrete mix.
He said the concrete pillars would be constructed 250 meters apart to allow vessels to navigate under the bridge.
Dean Ortiz, DPWH-11 spokesperson, said that once the bridge is completed, it will reduce travel time to just five minutes, from the current 20 to 25 minutes by boat. That is excluding the waiting time for vehicles to board the roro vessel, which could take one hour or more, especially during long holidays or weekends.
The bridge would definitely further boost the tourism and economy of Samal Island, and at the same time allow residents there easy access to government services or their work in the city, he said. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)
