Welcome plan to clean up Manila Bay

WHEN Boracay was closed down because, in the words of President Duterte, its surrounding waters had become a cesspool, the fecal coliform bacterial level had reached 100 MPN (Most Probable Number) per 100 milliliters of water, Secretary Roy Cimatu of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said last week.

The coliform level in Manila Bay’s waters have already reached 350 MPN per 100 milliliters, Secretary Cimatu said as he announced that the DENR – finally – is acting on a problem that became the subject of a Supreme Court decision as early as 10 years ago.

The DENR, he said, is setting up four Community Environment and Natural Resources Offices (CENROs) around the coast of Manila Bay – in Manila, in Navotas-Malabon, in Pasay-Parañaque, and in Las Pinas – to monitor the bay cleanup which is due to begin next year. These will cover the most polluted parts of the bay, the areas closest to the cities of Metro Manila.

Less polluted are the shores of the bay in Bataan, Pampanga, and Bulacan in the north and in Cavite in the south. As the cleanup progresses, we expect he monitoring of the waters will include these other areas.

Boracay was closed down because its waters had become so polluted by hotels, restaurants, and other enterprises catering to the millions of tourist visitors. It was beginning to show an ugly face of the Philippines to foreign visitors and President Dutere acted decisively in closing it down for six months.

The problem of pollution in Manila Bay was actually known years earlier, in 2008, when the Supreme Court, acting on the complaint of a citizens group, ordered 13 government agencies led by the DENR to “to clean up, rehabilitate, and preserve Manila Bay, restore and maintain its waters to make them fit for swimming, skindiving, and other forms of contact recreation.”

Nothing substantial was done in the ten years since that Supreme Court order. There are local government orders banning swimming in the polluted waters of the bay, while periodic cleanup drives are held by various groups along the coast to remove truckloads of plastics and other garbage coming from the towns surrounding the bay.

It is only now that the DENR has acted, with Secretary Cimatu’s announcement that it will fulfill its part under the 2008 Supreme Court order to clean up and rehabilitate Manila Bay. But the DENR is only one of the 13 government agencies ordered by the Supreme Court to act on the problem.

The pollution in Manila Bay comes mostly from the sewage flowing down the streams into the Pasig River and other major channels draining Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The DENR’s four new community centers will monitor the fecal coliform levels starting next year but we do not see these pollution levels going down unless that sewage flowing into the bay is stopped by the local governments and the millions of households without proper waste treatment facilities in Metro Manila.

Still, the DENR plan is a beginning and is most welcome.