By Rex Catubig

 

THE groundbreaking and construction of the new bridge that will span across the Calmay River, linking the city to its island barrios and becoming the modern gateway to the Western towns, has suddenly drawn flak and been subjected to defamatory innuendos. Yet, this project that no one in recent memory had dared to plan and initiate, but is now forced into the limelight and the focus of unkind scrutiny, is more than the sum of insinuations and arithmetic at the core of the bashers’ bragging rights.

Brouhaha aside, this august project is actually a godsend and augurs well for the Calmay residents who, for ages and generations, have ridden off the rough river of dream for its realization.

It has remained a pipe dream since my boyhood, resonating and still echoing now in my senior years. So, undertaking its construction has made my heart beat a thousand drum rolls and stirred my mind to spiral through the bygone years.

Franklin Bridge was the lifeline of the island barrios to the heart of Dagupan and the integral “part of the 12-kilometer Golden Road” hovering along the meandering Agno, linking Dagupan to western Pangasinan.

Built by the Americans in the 1920s, the concrete and steel Franklin Bridge traversed the wide and deep Calmay River. It was an engineering marvel as it featured a steel drawbridge at the center that opened up to allow the passage of tall sailboats. At its foot on the Calmay riverbank, the renowned Colegio de San Alberto Magno of the Dominicans stood proud as a crown jewel amid the humble barrio surroundings.

But nature wrought havoc on the idyllic locale. A devastating flood in August 1935 devoured the riverbank, undermined the foundation of the brick and mortar Colegio, and swept away the bridge.

When the flood subsided, only the east portion of the bridge on the Baley side survived. While the Colegio had to be demolished, and the rubble of its once massive columns and walls lay lifeless and prostrate on the west bank in Babaliwan, on the Calmay end.

Three decades later, in 1972, another destructive flood hit Dagupan—with surging flood waters rising above several steps of the City Hall’s grand staircase.

The floodwater fomented a rampaging river current that carved anew the Calmay riverbank, washing away and sinking forever the last vestiges of the Colegio in the river’s unfathomable depth.

Fortunately, a couple of spans of the Franklin Bridge on the east Baley side stood defiant of the current and were saved from being swallowed by the river.

Ironically, in the early 2000, man himself almost caused its total obliteration.

The construction of the Pantal-Dawel-Lucao Diversion Road/De Venecia Highway, had put the historic remnant in jeopardy as it jutted out across the path of the diversion road being laid out. It is to the credit of the then City officials that their cultural allegiance prevailed and they successfully negotiated with the Japanese contractors to save it from demolition.

38 years after the last devastation it suffered, and surviving the potential destruction, in 2010, on the 63rd anniversary of Agew na Dagupan, the city, through Mayor Alipio Fernandez, finally gave its belated imprimatur by erecting a marker honoring the role of the Franklin Bridge in the city’s history.

There ensued a city plan to develop the area into a recreation park and cultural heritage hub. But in a reversal of fortune, the blueprint was swept away by the cruel current of politics.

Still, the beleaguered Franklin endured, prevailed against all odds.

But it was not the end of its troubles.

As the construction is underway, it would be battered by bias and bashing, and hurled with unmitigated suspicion aimed at ignominy –all tied to riding the tide of public opinion and gaining a fifteen-second shot at perceived relevance.

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