NEWS

By Bernadette E. Tamayo | The Manila Times | November 24, 2021

JAPANESE engineers, with the help of their Filipino counterparts, have started the excavation for the Philippines’ first-ever long-distance mountain tunnel located in Davao City.

The 2.3-kilometer twin tunnels of the Davao City Bypass Road was funded by the Japanese government under its Official Development Assistance (ODA) program.

Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Kazuhiko Koshikawa witnessed on November 19 the start of tunnel boring activity, the Japanese Embassy in Manila said on Monday.

Public Works Secretary Roger Mercado and Build, Build, Build chief implementer undersecretary Emil Sadain joined Koshikawa and representatives of Japan’s leading tunnel construction companies in surveying the site.

The twin tunnels are a key component of the 45.5-kilometer Davao City Bypass Construction Project in Southern Mindanao, which will begin in Barangay Sirawan, Toril, Davao City and end in Barangay J.P. Laurel, Panabo City.

“Once completed, the tunnels will help reduce travel time from almost two hours via the Pan-Philippine Highway to just 49 minutes,” the embassy said in a statement.

The project’s tunneling activity will use specialized equipment such as drill jumbo, concrete spraying machine and articulated dump hauler, which will work simultaneously at the north and south portals to construct the two tunnels with a height of eight meters and a width of 10 meters.

The tunnel is part of contract package 1-1 covering 10.7 kilometers of a four-lane highway, which also includes the construction of 3 pairs of bridges, 2 underpasses, 2 overpasses, 4 at-grade intersections, and 12 box-culverts for drainage.

The Davao City Bypass Road is another quality infrastructure project financed by ODA with Special Terms for Economic Partnership Loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the embassy added.

Koshikawa also joined Mercado at the groundbreaking ceremony on November 16 for the fourth and final phase of Pasig-Marikina River Channel Improvement Project (PMRCIP), which aims to further mitigate flooding due to overflow of Pasig and Marikina Rivers.

The civil works for Phase 4 will increase the flood capacity of Pasig-Marikina River and address the downstream of Manggahan Floodway to Marikina Bridge with the construction of the Manggahan Control Gate Structure as well as two floodgates at the adjoining sections of Cainta and Taytay Rivers.

The project also includes non-structural measures such as information campaign and publicity, flood mitigation committee, flood hazard map and environmental monitoring, all aimed to fully support the holistic disaster control approach of the Philippine government.

Together, these measures are expected to protect communities near Pasig and Marikina River from flood damage caused by channel overflow, the embassy said.

PMRCIP is the flagship initiative of the long-standing disaster management cooperation between Japan and the Philippines.

Phase 1 of the project covers the overall detailed design which was completed in March 2002, followed by Phase 2 covering Pasig River Channel improvement works from Delpan Bridge to Napindan Hydraulic Control Gate Structure and completed in May 2013.

Phase 3 covered the Lower Marikina Channel improvement works from Napindan Channel to downstream Manggahan Floodway including additional dredging works completed in July 2020.

The entire PMRCIP was funded by a loan agreement between the Philippine government through the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Japanese government through JICA.

Source: The Manila Times