‘Heads will roll’ in bridge collapse; cops look for weight limit checker
Malacañang has ordered an investigation to see whether corruption was a factor in the collapse of a newly reopened bridge in Isabela province, where the police have also started looking at the culpability of the on-ground staff.
Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary and Malacañang press officer Claire Castro said “heads will roll” following Thursday’s collapse of a portion of the newly retrofitted Cabagan-Sta. Maria Bridge.
“If there is any whiff of corruption in this incident from 2014 until now, someone has to answer for this. That’s what the President said,” Castro said in an interview on state-run Radyo Pilipinas on Saturday.
“Even more so if there’s a possibility of corruption because your first thought would be, ‘Why would a bridge be so weak?’” she added.
Where’s the flagman?
Castro said the collapse of the bridge is “no ordinary case” and those accountable “should go to jail.”
Construction of the 990-meter bridge began in November 2014 while retrofitting was completed on Feb. 1.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Cagayan Valley said it took more than a decade to complete the P1.22-billion project to make it more earthquake-proof. The DPWH has identified RD Interior Jr. Construction as the private contractor.
In Cabagan, Isabela, police have launched a search for the flagman or guard manning the bridge on the night it collapsed.
Police Maj. Merwin Villanueva, Cabagan police chief, said on Saturday they were looking into the possible culpability of the flagman because he allowed a Shackman-type dump truck loaded with quarried stones weighing over 100 tons to pass, despite the 40-ton weight limit.
The driver of the truck that crashed, from Tabuk City in Kalinga, surrendered to police on Saturday.
Police learned from him that another dump truck, also carrying quarried materials weighing about 100 tons, was able to cross the bridge before it gave way. The truck he was driving, along with three other vehicles, fell into the dry embankment of the Cagayan River.
According to the driver, he was tailing the other truck when he asked the flagman if he could also pass. Both trucks were delivering stones and boulders for a road project in northern Isabela.
Villanueva said it was unlikely that the driver would be charged since he was also “a victim.”
Police said eight people were injured, not six as earlier reported.
