The Sabang Bridge in 1941. Image source: Presidential Museum and Library PH on Flickr.
Motorists who regularly ply the Ibaan-Batangas City Road may not find anything remotely remarkable about the Sabang Bridge along the way, but just like every structure it has a story that just needs to be told. In the late nineteenth century, according to the historian Manuel Sastron1, the most traversed road that ran through Ibaan was the one that led to the municipality of San Jose.
The bridge was part of the San Juan de Bocboc to Batangas Road Project and completed in the first quarter of 1914. Of course, its construction posed many challenges. It was built to span a ravine that was “31 meters above low water on one bank and 41.5 on the other.” In other words, from one end of the bridge, there was a plunge of 102 feet and 136 feet at the other.
Some antiquated adobe bridges in Batangas built by the former Spanish colonial regime, Caton noted, were still in excellent condition. However, these bridges were vulnerable to the frequent earthquakes in the province, primarily because of Taal Volcano’s continuing activity. Their foundations also began to soften over time due to frequent immersion in water.
The bridge was completed at a total cost of ₱58,500. Morgan Friedman’s inflation calculator estimates this same amount to be ₱1,453,873.82 in the present day.
According to the history of barrio Sabang in Ibaan5, Sabang Bridge was blown up in World War II and subsequently rebuilt in 1952 by the United States Rehabilitation Administration. How it looks like in the present day is shown in the Google Earth Street View picture below.
Sabang Bridge in the present day. Image courtesy of Google Earth Street View.
2 Most of the important details about Sabang Bridge, unless otherwise annotated, is taken from “Sabang Bridge,” by John H. Caton, published in Bureau of Public Works Quarterly Bulletin, Volume III, Number 1 on 1 April 1914.
3 “Grade,” online at Merriam-Webster.
4 “Adobe,” online at Merriam-Webster.
5 “History and Cultural Life of Barrio Sabang,” online at the National Library of the Philippines Digital Collections.