GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Monday, June 30, 2008
Just when one of government’s rare successful projects is about to be revived, envious contractors are badmouthing it. It’s a classic example of crab mentality, of pulling down the successful in order to rise. Intriguing in official and media circles, the contractors are claiming that the President’s Bridges Program is about to use untested steel technology. In the process, though, they accidentally might expose their own poor design and works.
Begun in 1995, the Bridges Program has run under three Presidents. Its engineering took off from the post-Liberation Bailey bridges, but with improved technology. Using snap-on steel sheets and rails, construction time was cut to only a month or two. More than that, the bridges were sturdy enough to withstand raging floodwaters, resisted rust, and had no moving parts that could be stolen. The only constraint to work speed was fund availability. Other urgent priorities competed for attention. So soft loans were obtained from the European Union or single members depending on what provinces the foreign governments wished to help. More than a thousand rivers and ravines were spanned in 11 years.
And yet the Bridges Program has barely scratched surface. Regional and national officials in the early ’90s, consulting with local businessmen, had identified at least 15,000 bridges needing to be built then. But with funding always scarce, the construction score has been less than a tenth of target. Then, works abruptly ended in early 2006 reportedly due to quality decline from a British supplier. Complaints of neglect naturally began to mount from rural folk who were left behind. Bridges in adjacent barrios had spurred commerce that put more money in the pockets of fellow-farmers. Not to mention, getting their children to school dry instead of wading across streams.
In Feb. a new steelmaker was found, courtesy of a French agency that would provide fresh financing. Improvements were made in the old design to cut the costs of fabrication, delivery and site assembly. No longer will the steel frame be overlaid with concrete that tends to crack from shrinkage, but with a durable special resin coating. Installation time would take only weeks. The span can hold up to 60-80 tons, and the maker is guaranteeing a lifespan of 100 years with two million vehicle cycles. With the entry of the new French constructor, the quick-assembly steel spans finally will resume.
With still more than 13,000 bridges needing to be built, there’s more than enough room for everybody in the business to participate. That is, so long as they meet public works standards and bidding rules. But some envious contractors wish to ease out the steel technology in favor of their old concrete-encased spans using Japanese know-how. Perhaps they fear that the sample steelwork in bridges eventually will compete as well in the construction of seaports, another growing need in the wake of roll on-roll off transport.
The track record of steel bridges is established, though. The Bridges Program exceeded its original target of 1,128 bridges by 75 units, for a total of 1,203. The additional spans were built from savings from the first batch. The excess weren’t just short spans over narrow creeks; one was the 210-meter
The virtual 106.65-percent accomplishment rate was done cheaply too. Most of the steel bridges cost P480,000 per linear meter, 12 percent lower than the closest foreign bid of P555,000 (which the government later took on when a funder came along). That cost is only a fifth of concrete builders’ prices, at a tenth of the construction time.
Notably most of the envious contractors are also the poorest workers. Cost overruns of 39 to 87 percent mar the spans they are constructing at present, according to a May 2008 report of the President’s Bridges Program. Those doing repair and maintenance have overshot their own bids by three to 43 percent; flood control ways are above budget by 9 to 63 percent. Not one of the steel bridges in the past decade ever exceeded its cost limit.
In fairness, some of the concrete works funded by
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Those who experienced the fury of Typhoon Frank and survived must imagine the misery of countrymen who lost homes, farms or loved ones. Donations are pouring in, but the victims still need clothes; ready-to-cook food; cold, cough and diarrhea medicines; and cash. Search your cabinets for other items for normal living that you can share: kitchen and dining utensils, beddings, toys, musical instruments, and carpentry tools. Many media and church organizations have organized collection drives, so you can go to the one nearest you. You’d feel grat about yourself.
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