By DAVE SUAN ALBARADO

Bohol 1st District Rep. John Geesnell “Baba” Yap II has announced that the Department of Public Works and Highways has formally opened bidding for the Panglao-Tagbilaran City Offshore Bridge Connector, a French government-funded project nearly a decade in the making that will add a third crossing between Tagbilaran and Panglao Island.

Yap expressed gratitude to the DPWH Central Office and the French government for prioritizing what he called a critical infrastructure project for the province’s first district, saying the new crossing would relieve chronic congestion at the Junction and Causeway corridor — the two existing links between Tagbilaran City and the resort island.

The project — formally known as the PTCOBC — is a 1.03-kilometer, four-lane cable-stayed bridge patterned after the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway.

Once completed, it is expected to cut travel time between the Bohol-Panglao International Airport and the Tagbilaran seaport from 45 minutes to roughly 15 minutes.

Total project cost is pegged at P7.15 billion pesos.

Bidding is limited to three French contractors — Freyssinet, Matiere SAS, and Gagne SA — shortlisted by the French Ministry of Commerce under a design-and-build scheme tied to the bilateral preferential loan arrangement between France and the Philippines.

Eligible bidders must show prior completion of comparable infrastructure equivalent to at least 50 percent of the approved budget.

The bidding opening caps a protracted funding odyssey.

Approaches on both the Tagbilaran and Dauis sides were completed years ago using nationally appropriated funds — some P801 million pesos released across the 2018, 2020, and 2023 national budgets — but the main offshore span repeatedly stalled for lack of a committed financing source.

The project was first worked by then-Bohol Gov. Edgar Chatto, who endorsed it to the Regional Development Council as early as 2015 in anticipation of traffic volumes the new airport would generate.

The Bohol-Panglao International Airport opened in November 2018, and congestion along the Junction and Causeway quickly confirmed what planners had warned years earlier.

The NEDA Investment Coordination Committee approved the P6.955-billion-peso project in January 2022.

Financing was initially pursued through a Chinese government grant via the China International Development Cooperation Agency, but that arrangement did not push through, leaving some P6 billion pesos still needed to complete the main span even as the two approach structures on either side stood finished.

The project then pivoted to French ODA.

In September 2024, DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan confirmed to then-Rep. Chatto that the agency had submitted documentation to the NEDA ICC to seek approval for the French ODA loan component, with the ICC Secretariat evaluating submissions for deliberation by its Technical Board.

The NEDA ICC subsequently approved the French ODA funding in November 2024, with the package discussed by the Department of Finance, DPWH, and NEDA.

The Capitol announced in December 2025 that funds had been secured and that bidding would begin, calling it a breakthrough for Bohol and crediting DPWH for the long-awaited development.

The new bridge will serve as an alternative route to the existing Jacinto Borja Bridge at the Mansasa-Dauis junction and the Ambassador Suarez Bridge along the Causeway, with the main offshore span crossing the sea from Dauis to the entrance of the Tagbilaran tourism port.

Tagbilaran and Dauis have been linked since at least the 18th century, when Spanish colonial authorities constructed the first bridge between Mansasa and the Dauis poblacion.

A second crossing — the Causeway — was later built near the old Tagbilaran city hall toward Totolan in Dauis and for generations served as the primary artery to Panglao.

Both bridges now carry combined volumes of commuters, cargo vehicles, and tourists that far exceed their original design capacity.

No construction start date was immediately announced.

Award of contract to the winning bidder must follow before groundbreaking can proceed.