DPWH to put early warning designs in all projects after bridge collapse in Pangasinan
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has ordered all its officials to strictly impose the inclusion of an "early warning design" in all government infrastructure projects.
This is in response to the incidents of distorted roads, collapsing bridges, and other inevitable devastations occurring in some government-funded infrastructures due to improper usage of public utilities, the recent was the Wawa Bridge in Pangasinan, now called the Carlos P. Romulo Bridge, which was damaged when two overloaded trucks crossed the bridge.
DPWH Secretary Manuel M. Bonoan said that a lack of proper awareness among the public leads to further disastrous occurrences.
Bonoan reiterated the preceding Department Order No. 164, Series of 2016, which mandates DPWH Regional, District Engineering Offices, and Unified Project Management Office Clusters to include all safety design features in all government projects.
According to Bonoan, safety design features should always be included in all national roads, bridges, and other infrastructure projects.
"Every road project needs to meet the criteria of the International Roughness Index (IRI), and have necessary drainage facilities, shoulders, or slope protection works, among others. These features will be included in our projects as early as their planning stages to guarantee our projects are safe for public use," Bonoan noted.
He furthered that under DO No. 164, implementing offices are required to ensure that any findings in a road safety audit, carried out before or during design, are addressed as part of the road or bridge project itself, and not treated as a separate project later with different funding.
"Implementing offices are also mandated to properly plan and work with the DPWH Planning Service (PS) to ensure sufficient road safety funds are included as part of the proposed projects during the annual budget preparation, as well as propose appropriate safety intervention or features in the Program of Works (POW) and Detailed Engineering Design (DED) of a proposed project," Bonoan said.