TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Tourism is eyeing the completion of the San Juanico Bridge aesthetic lighting project by December after months of delay due to the health crisis.
Work on the PHP80-million project resumed last month after work stoppage due to coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) movement restrictions, Department of Tourism Regional Director Karina Rosa Tiopes said in an interview on Tuesday.
Tiopes said contractor Amigo Entertainment Technologies, Inc., one of the country’s leaders in providing audio and visual technologies for commercial and industrial applications, got the green light to continue the project funded by the Tourism Infrastructure Zone Authority.
“We are expecting to complete the project by the end of this year and looking at the possibility of having a test run this October,” she said.
The original completion date was in May this year.
Once completed, the San Juanico aesthetic lighting project is expected to attract more tourists to visit the region especially Tacloban City and Samar provinces, attracting tourism-related investments such as restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops, and accommodation facilities that will create more jobs.
The project is also expected to provide additional tourism activities in the area which at present only daytime tours are offered.
The lighting will be in the default position for 45 minutes per hour in white and strobe lights. There will be a 10-minute light show six times nightly.
Its color may vary depending on the occasion, such as red for Valentine's, red and green for Christmas, and violet for Lent.
Samar’s provincial government will shoulder the cost of electric consumption estimated at PHP5.3 million annually.
The bridge’s transformation would be a new attraction under the Spark Samar, a branding campaign of the local government that was launched in 2015.
The San Juanico Bridge was built in August 1969 over the San Juanico Strait, the narrowest navigational strait in the world that separates Samar and Leyte Islands, and was completed in December 1972.
The bridge, which spans 2.162 kilometers, was built as part of the Pan-Philippine Highway now called the Maharlika Highway, a network of roads, bridges, and sea routes that connect the islands of Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and Mindanao. (PNA)