![]() ![]() The "Philippine-Japan Friendship Highway Bridge" was part of a large bundle of high-visibility foreign-loan-funded infrastructure launched by President Ferdinand Marcos' administration during the 1969 presidential election campaign. In the years after the Marcos conjugal dictatorship, economic activity in Samar and Leyte has finally caught up with the bridge's intended function under the guidance of several administrations from Corazon Aquino to the present administration, and has become an iconic tourist attraction. Upon its completion, economists and public works engineers quickly tagged it as a white elephant which was "a possession that is useless and expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of", because its average daily traffic was too low to justify the cost of its construction. Completed four years later, it was inaugurated on 2 July 1973 on the birthday of Imelda Marcos. It was one of the high-visibility foreign-loan projects initiated by Marcos during the run-up to the 1969 presidential election. Marcos built the bridge as a personal gift to his wife Imelda using public funds siphoned through the controversial Marcos Japanese ODA scandal. Constructed during the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos through Japanese Official Development Assistance loans, it has a total length of 2.16 kilometers (1.34 mi)-the second longest bridge spanning a body of seawater in the Philippines after Cebu-Cordova Bridge. Its longest length is a steel girder viaduct built on reinforced concrete piers, and its main span is of an arch-shaped truss design. The San Juanico Bridge ( Filipino: Tulay ng San Juanico Waray: Tulay han San Juanico) is part of the Pan-Philippine Highway and stretches from Samar to Leyte across the San Juanico Strait in the Philippines. Philippine-Japan Friendship Highway bridge formerly Marcos Bridge Ĭonstruction and Development Corporation of the Philippines
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