San Miguel Corporation (SMC) has bagged a lucrative contract for the construction of a Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX) extension to San Juan, La Union.
In a Facebook post, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said that the public-private partnership (PPP) contract amounts to P23.36 billion and that the extension to the nation’s surfing capital will be 59.4km long.
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“With the signed PPP contract, the STEIC [SMC TPLEX Extension Infrastructure Corp.] and DPWH can now proceed with detailed engineering design (DED), parcellary plan, right-of-way (ROW) acquisition for all the segments so that we can commence civil works by July 2025,” DPWH head Manuel Bonoan said in a statement.
The project is being divided into three stages: Segment 1 will be from the TPLEX Rosario exit until Tubao, Segment 2 will be from Tubao to Naguilian, and Segment three will be from Naguilian to San Juan, La Union. It will also feature five interchanges, namely Rosario, Tubao, Naguilian, Bauang, and San Juan.
Once the project is finished, the DPWH says it will cut down travel time from Rosario to San Juan to just 40 minutes from an hour and a half.
According to the DPWH, the TPLEX extension project will be completed before the end of the current administration in 2028. Will your trips to the Philippine surf capital be more frequent once this is done?
