Truck carrying 102 tons of boulders blamed in Isabela bridge collapse
Art Dumlao — March 3, 2025
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BAGUIO CITY (February 28, 2025)—The public works department in Region 2 is blaming a dump truck carrying 102 tons of boulders caused Thursday night’s collapse of the third span of the Sta. Maria-Cabagan Bridge in Sta. Maria, Isabela province.
The 60-meter third span of the Cabagan side of the bridge collapsed around 8:00 PM where six residents including two kids from four different vehicles were hurt. Involved vehicles were the dump truck, two SUVs and a motorcycle.
The driver and the passenger of the truck blamed for the collapse fled.
One of the children who suffered severe injuries was rushed to the Cagayan Valley Medical Center (CVMC) and is in critical condition while the rest were brought to the Milagros Albano District Hospital (MADH) and recuperating.
The DPWH-Region 2 said the construction of the 990-meter bridge started wayback still in November 2014 and was only completed on February 1, 2025 with a total cost of P1,225,537,087.92 .
It announced in a statement that it is conducting further analysis on the cause of the bridge’s failure and has requested experts from the Bureau of Design and Bureau of Construction at the DPWH-Central Office to conduct further evaluation and assessment.
Governor Rodolfo Albano calmed down speculations that the project was rigged with corruption and let a probe prove what really caused the bridge’s collapse. “We all don’t want this to happen,” he said. Let an investigation be launched and whoever is responsible must answer for it, he stressed.
Though critics immediately poured disgust into social media pointing at corruption as the culprit. An Isabela resident pushed for a Senate probe “to go into the bottom of things of how infrastructure projects are affected by kickbacks by politicians in collusion with corrupt officials at the DPWH.
