Category: More Trivia

The tallest bridge in the Philippines is an 89-meter-high bridge located in barangay Kahupian in the town of Sogod, Southern Leyte. The 350-meter-long bridge called Agas-Agas Bridge was constructed at a cost of more than PhP1 billion and inaugurated on August 9, 2009.

It is a part of the Daang Maharlika Highway and was built to serve as a permanent solution to the natural movements of loose soil aggregates, or landslides, in the mountainous area during rainy days reportedly due to a fault line that hinder traffic when the highway is blocked.

"Considered an engineering masterpiece, the Agas-Agas Bridge would provide a safe connection from the Daang Maharlika to Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, like the ones existing in Matnog, Sorsogon, Allen, Samar, and the Liloan Ferry Terminal, in Southern Leyte connecting all the way to Surigao," the Office of the Press Secretary said.

It was built starting 2006 by the Sumitomo Mitsui Construction Co., Ltd., with loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) under the second phase of the Philippine-Japan Friendship Highway Rehabilitation Project.

As of December 2008, the Philippines had 17 regions; 81 provinces; 136 cities; 1,495 municipalities or towns; and 42,008 barangays.

In the fourth quarter of 2008 alone, 13 new barangays or villages, including Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City (Metro Manila), were added in the Philippine Standard Geographic Code masterlist, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

This brought the total number of barangays in the country to 42,008 as of December last year.

"Ten new barangays were created in Taguig City in the National Capital Region, while three barangays were created in the province of Maguindanao, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao," the NSCB said.

The Philippines, a group of over 7,000 islands with combined land area encompassing 300,000 square kilometres, grew into a nation under more than three centuries of Spanish conquest and 42 years of American rule. It is the first country outside the New World that closely witnessed the United States’ rise to power following the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Situated 800 kilometres southeast of mainland Asia, the archipelago, named after King Philip II of Spain, was discovered in 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan, the same explorer who had discovered the Pacific Ocean in search of the so-called “Spice Islands” and is now widely considered the first navigator to have cruised around the planet.

Ironically, the Filipinos, after having been subdued for centuries by foreign colonizers as a result of Magellan’s voyage, would emerge as the best seafarers in the world, manning a third of all international vessels today. Some 7.8 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and Filipino migrants would help rebuild cities in many countries and bring back over US$10 billion in annual remittances to their families in the Philippines.

Magellan, who claimed the archipelago for Spain in 1521, died in a battle with a group of local warriors led by Lapu Lapu at Mactan Island. It was Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, in the fourth Spanish expedition, who named the territory as Filipinas after the heir to the Spanish throne in 1543. In 1565, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi led an expedition to colonize the islands and by 1571, most parts of the archipelago came under Spanish rule.

The Spaniards established the colonial government first in Cebu in 1565 and then in Manila in 1571. Historians claim that University of San Carlos in Cebu and University of Sto. Tomas in Manila are the oldest universities teaching European type of education in Asia. Jesuit and Dominican priests established the two institutions.

Ferdinand Marcos, the Senate president, defeated Macapagal in the presidential election to become the country’s tenth president in November 1965. A close ally of the United States, Marcos launched military campaigns against the insurgents including the communist Hukbalahap and Moro rebels in Mindanao. In August 1967, Manila hosted a summit that led to the creation of the ASEAN.

In 1992, Fidel Ramos was elected President. He began his term amid an energy crisis, which plunged the country literally into darkness. This he was able to resolve by inviting foreign investors to take part in the so-called build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme, where they would serve as independent power producers (IPPs) enjoying a lot of incentives and guaranteed market. While it brought light to Filipino households, the scheme would later translate to high electricity rates.