ILOILO City – Mayor Jerry Treñas said they will wait for the result of the geotechnical investigation conducted by a third-party consulting firm tapped by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Region 6 on the defective P680-million Ungka flyover.
The city mayor, who was hospitalized last week due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and currently recuperating at home, said he has not received a report yet from DPWH and was not about able to follow it up.
“Since it is Holy Week, mahulat next week,” he said. “We will take it up with them next week.”
Treñas is the chairman of the Infrastructure Development Committee of the Regional Development Council in Western Visayas.
The city mayor earlier expressed he was very hopeful that the report of the third-party consulting firm on the Pavia Ungka flyover will be out before the end of March.
“We will finally find out what DPWH will do about the flyover so that we can finally use it,” he said.
DPWH-6 assistant director Jose Al Fruto confirmed on Monday, April 3, that they have yet to receive a copy of the investigation results from the Metro Manila-based Abinales Associates Engineers + Consultants.
“Naga-base lang kita sa gin-commit sang aton third-party consulting firm that they can provide us the information already by the end of March,” Fruto told Panay News.
He said he was not able to ascertain if the firm sent its report directly to the DPWH central office, but he expects that they will be given a copy.
The third-party consulting firm started its investigation on March 3. It will last for three months, but the DPWH expected initial results after a month. Another part of the firm’s job is to determine the applicable engineering solution.
After submitting the recommendation, the DPWH central office will assess how to apply the intervention.
Geotechnical investigation, according to trenchlesspedia.com, implies the use of different methods to determine the physical properties of soil and rock below the surface of the earth at a proposed installation site. It helps engineers make decisions regarding the types of tools that will be required to dig through the site most economically. It also assesses the potential environmental impact that a project may have on a particular area.
Geotechnical investigation is an essential step in any trenchless operation because knowledge of subsurface conditions is key to a successful project.
It will focus on determining the cause of the vertical displacement of settlement in piers 4, 5 and 6 (if counting the posts from Christ the King Memorial Park) and formulating the appropriate intervention for the defect./PN
