ROQUE
A FLOATING bridge to connect Cebu and Negros Island is being pushed by Rep. Herminio “Harry” Roque as his way of thanking the Cebuanos and the Negrenses who helped vote him to office.
Roque said this bridge would be the first of its kind in the country since the structure would link the estimated three-kilometer gap between Santander town in the South of Cebu and Dumaguete City in Negros Island.
“This is still a wild idea. But I will not give up on this,” Roque told reporters yesterday.
He said that he had already tapped a Europe-based engineering firm to conduct a feasibility study on the project which he hopes to proceed within the year. “I will go over the feasibility and once it is done, I will immediately introduce this to Neda (National Economic and Development Authority).”
Cebuanos have long been clamoring for a bridge that will adjoin both points, but Roque said the enormous depth of the waters separating the Negros Island and Cebu provinces had made the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) abandon all plans of building a bridge there.
“Maliit lang (the distance is too little), you can swim through it. But the problem is the strait between the two points is too deep. DPWH said that a bridge is not feasible because there is no technology that can make it possible. We can’t build posts there that can handle the bridge,” Roque said.
He said he had consulted with a European firm to provide a technology that will enable the construction of the floating bridge.
Roque said the actual project cost will be revealed once the feasibility study is accomplished. The floating bridge will be finished before the congressman’s term ends by 2019.