When President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. arrived in Davao City to “inspect” the Bucana Bridge, the optics were clear: a photo‑op, a ribbon‑ready moment, and a chance to stamp his presence on a project he did not conceptualize, negotiate, fund, or initiate. But this time, the public wasn’t buying it.
Netizens immediately called out what they saw as blatant credit‑grabbing — and for once, the online outrage wasn’t noise. It was grounded in facts the administration conveniently left out of the cameras’ frame.
Because the Bucana Bridge is not just another infrastructure project.
It is a P3.2‑billion structure built at zero cost to the Philippine government — a diplomatic grant secured under the Duterte administration, funded entirely by China, and constructed through a mechanism that ensured not a single peso of Philippine treasury money was spent.
And that is precisely why the public bristled at the spectacle.
The Bucana Bridge was made possible through an Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation signed in 2018 and reaffirmed in 2020. China pledged roughly 500 million renminbi in grant funding — a “basket of grants” that included the bridge as its largest item.
This was not a loan. Not a credit line. Not a future burden on taxpayers.
It was a gift, structured so that: The Philippines never received the cash; the DPWH only verified completed work; China directly paid the Chinese contractor; no debt, no interest, no repayment, no budget allocation.
The money never touched Philippine hands.
The Philippines simply received the infrastructure.
So when Marcos arrived to “inspect” a bridge that his administration neither funded nor initiated, the public saw it for what it was: an attempt to inherit a legacy without acknowledging the hands that built it.
Infrastructure is not a trophy to be claimed by whoever happens to be in office when the cameras roll. It is a continuum — a relay — and leadership requires honesty about where one’s leg of the race begins.
