Panguil Bay Bridge
 by Morpheus Agot

A utopia infrastructure symbolizing the visionary leadership of the present administration, the Panguil Bay Bridge has been on the priority list of projects of Governor Loreto Leo Ocampos.
 
Borne out of an overload of concretizing accomplishments of projects, livelihood programs, and environmental concerns, this dream is a giant leap to unite the fragmented Mindanao and soon catapult this part of the island to progress in the subsequent increase of commerce once this spider web of steel is completed.
 
Governor Ocampos has already submitted the detailed engineering plan assigning every bolt and steel frame of the proposed 1.3 km bridge. Supposedly, its feasibility study costs P50M, but the governor himself, an engineer, intervened and by his resourcefulness and creativity collated a cheaper perspective costing only less than a million pesos
 
He has presented the plan to the pledging sessions in numerous international gatherings of bankers, financers, and would be stake holders.
 
“Panguil Bay Bridge na naman?” snapped President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when Governor Ocampos was seated beside her in a plane on the way to Japan for a state visit to early last year. The President seems vexed by the persistence of our beloved governor to get the Panguil Bay Bridge Project’s ‘Presidential Approval.’
 
The Governor is quick to admit that the roadblocks of this four to seven billion-peso project are lack of counterpart funds on the side of the Philippine Government and the protectionist attitude of semi-government financial institutions which have multi-million exposures to the dominant barge operator in the Ozamiz City to Kolambugan, Lanao del Norte route.
 
“But as long as I am governor of Misamis Occidental, my relentless effort will continue for its eventual realization. At least, for the moment, I have transferred this longing in our hearts to walk across Panguil Bay, to the drawing boards of world-class engineering consultants and contractors,” Governor Ocampos declared.
 
“For nothing has ever reached the skies until someone dreamed about it, thought about it and decided that it must,” the Governor added.