It’s a go for the Panay-Guimaras-Negros Island Bridges Project.
This was confirmed by Secretary Mark Villar in two separate Facebook posts over the weekend, saying that the Department of Public Works and Highways has already completed the project’s prefeasibility study.
“Tuloy po ba ang Panay-Guimaras-Negros Bridge? Tuloy na tuloy,” Villar said in a post on the Team Build Build Build Facebook group on Sunday, Feb. 14.
The previous day, the DPWH chief also posted a similar information on his own Facebook page.
“We have already completed the prefeasibility study. The feasibility study is now on its final stages. We are already preparing for its detailed engineering design,” he said.
Villar, however, did not yet provide a timeline on the implementation of the project.
In a Jan. 2, 2020 report, the National Economic Development Authority stated that the PGN Island Bridges Project was among the 12 projects recommended by the Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee for NEDA Board approval.
With a proposed cost of P189.53 billion, the project will be funded through an Official Development Assistance or ODA.
According to the NEDA report, the project involves the construction of a 32.47-kilometer, four-lane, two-sea-crossing bridges, including connecting roads and interchanges, that will connect the islands of Panay, Guimaras and Negros.
The project “intends to provide a safer, faster, and more convenient transportation linkage between Panay, Guimaras and Negros through a connected land passageway” and is “seen to improve the highway trunk networks thus, allowing the flow of people, goods and services between the three islands,” it added.
On Sunday, Feb. 14, Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson also said that a new feasibility for the bridges project, which will now include the areas in the province’s third district, will proceed.
Only the proposed site in Pulupandan town, situated in the fourth district, was included in the initial study.
“In one of our Provincial Development Council meetings, we asked for a new feasibility study…The former feasibility study, we never saw that. The message I’m getting is, buhay pa na’ng plano. Madayon gid na ang connection from Panay to Negros Occidental,” Lacson said in a radio program hosted by Vice Governor Jeffrey Ferrer, who also expressed support for the project.
“Both islands will benefit definitely, especially for tourism,” the governor added. – NLG
