THIS Monday, December 15, 2025, a new landmark is to be inaugurated in Davao City, the ‘Bucana Bridge,’ which is officially known as the ‘Davao River Bridge’ that is envisioned to provide a dramatic boost to the city’s coastal road system to improve traffic and boost trade and commerce in Mindanao’s most significant mega-city.
Bucana Bridge was funded thru China’s donation of $60 million (over P3.54 billion) and designed and built by ‘China Road and Bridge Corporation,’ which is a state-owned construction and engineering company known and respected globally.
We are not surprised, however, that some mainstream media reports omitted the fact that this magnificent four-lane bridge, spanning 477 meters with a total length of 1,340 meters with a six-span extradosed (a type of bridge structure, combining elements of girder and cable-stayed bridges) is another of China’s “goodwill” donation to Filipinos.
“As ambassador, I will firmly safeguard (China’s) national interests and dignity while serving as a ‘bridge’ to ensure that China-Philippines relations move toward stability rather than deterioration, and that the two peoples grow closer rather than further apart,” said HE Ambassador Jing Quan, upon stepping on Philippine soil.
In fact, Bucana Bridge is just one of the many bridges China donated throughout the period of its mutually beneficial relationship with the Philippines during the term of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, from 2017 to 2022.
Metro Manila is now enjoying two Pasig River crossing bridges that helped ease traffic around Makati and the Binondo Chinatown area, i.e., the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge and the Binondo-Intramuros Bridge, respectively.
There is also the $350 million Davao-Samal Island Connector that has been delayed by US-proxy elements thru their lawsuits on environmental grounds.
Aside from throwing further strain on Sino-PH relationship, the suits are also aimed at covering the fact that the US has not provided us with any help of such scale and magnitude and with no financial burden to Filipinos.
Figuratively, after a delay of more than two months, China has sent another “bridge” to help repair our damaged relationship.
“As ambassador, I will firmly safeguard (China’s) national interests and dignity while serving as a ‘bridge’ to ensure that China-Philippines relations move toward stability rather than deterioration, and that the two peoples grow closer rather than further apart,” said HE Ambassador Jing Quan, upon stepping on Philippine soil.
Amb. Jing replaces Amb. Huang Xilian, who completed his 6-years tour of duty last September. From his arrival statement, Amb. Jing appears focused to be the new diplomatic bridge between China and the Philippines.
Le us hope he succeeds in restoring the more than one millennium (more than 1.000 years) of good ties between the Philippines and China as exemplified by Butuan’s Rajah Kiling sending a tribute mission to China in 1001 AD and the death and state burial in China of Sultan Paduka Pahala of Sulu during his “state” visit to Ming Dynasty Emperor Yongle in 1417.
One unique quality of Ambassador Jing Quan is his being known as a ‘US Hand,’ (“expert”), having been the Deputy Chief of Mission at the Chinese embassy in Washington, as well as part of the Chinese team in the tough trade negotiations with the US under the Trump administration.
I believe his background would be extremely useful. It is no secret that the Philippines is today, under the Marcos administration, a “satellite,” a “proxy state” of the United States.
As I wrote in another article, “Ambassador Jing Quan is the ‘perfect bridge builder’ for Philippine-China ties, as he also comes from the greatest diplomatic and infrastructural bridge builder in the world: China, which has bridged the torn ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and bridged (the misunderstanding of) countries in the recent Tianjin Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit.
“China has built thousands of bridges across the BRICS world under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), linking countries towards its ‘Community of Shared Future for Mankind.’”