The Panguil Bay Bridge, touted as the longest sea-crossing bridge in Mindanao, is expected to be opened within 2024.
In his third of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 22, 2024, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. said the Panguil Bay Bridge is one of the two major bridges that are expected to be opened to motorists before the year ends.
Marcos said this is under the government’s inter-island linkage bridge program.
“We expect two major bridges to be opened to motorists this year. One is the Panguil Bay Bridge touted as the longest water-spanning bridge in Northern Mindanao…The other bridge is the Guicam Bridge in Zamboanga Sibugay, which shall connect the Olutanga Island to the mainland of Mindanao,” Marcos said.
The 3.17-kilometer Panguil Bay Bridge that connects Lanao del Norte to Misamis Occidental is 90 percent complete, according to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
DPWH said once the bridge is finished, the travel time between Tubod, Lanao del Norte and Tangub City, Misamis Occidental will be reduced to seven minutes from the current one hour and a half to two hours and a half travel time via Roll-on, Roll off (RoRo) or via land travel with around 100 kilometers.
In a report by GMA Regional TV One Mindanao, the bridge may be expected to be inaugurated in October 2024, four years after the construction started in 2020.
DPWH and the local government units of Lanao del Norte and Misamis Occidental have initiated the last concrete pouring of the bridge.
“Very significant bridge ito, matagal pinag-usapan ang tulay na to. I remember noong nasa department pa ako many, many years ago, we have been coming here back and forth yung Tubod-Tangub crossing pinaplano na ito noon pa but it took some time to conceptualize to build this bridge,” DPWH Secretary Manny Bonoan said.
The national government has allocated P7.3 billion for the project through a loan agreement between the governments of the Philippines and South Korea.
(With reports from James Paolo Yap, GMA Regional TV One Mindanao)
