MANILA – Rep. Alfredo “Albee” Benitez (Negros Occidental, 3rd District) was among those who fell in murky waters when a wooden footbridge collapsed in Zamboanga City yesterday.
Among those who fell were Rep. Celso Lobregat (Zamboanga, 1st District), Zamboanga mayor Maria Isabel Climaco-Salazar, other city officials, and members of the media.
The bridge was located in Barangay Rio Hondo where the public officials were inspecting houses of residents displaced by the Zamboanga siege in 2013.
The inspection was part of Benitez’s job as chairman of House of Representatives committee on housing and urban development.
The National Housing Authority (NHA) funded the bridge, which led to houses that were on stilts. An adjacent bridge also collapsed later yesterday.
Climaco-Salazar ordered the repair of the fallen footbridge, which was a part of the Z3R Program of the NHA and Department of Public Works and Highways./PN