Rehabilitation or reclamation for Manila Bay?

EVEN as the government moves to clean up heavily polluted and garbage-filled Manila Bay, there are plans being pursued by some sectors to reclaim a big part of the bay to create new land for development.

There are 22 planned projects all over Manila Bay, of which three are reported nearing approval. If approved, the 22 projects will cover about 22,000 hectares or about 11 percent of Manila Bay’s current area of 1,994 square kilometers. The three projects reported approved in principle by the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) are a 148-hectare Solar City Urban Center in Manila, a 360-hectare project in Pasay, and a 650-hectare Navotas Boulevard Business Park.

At a recent hearing held by the House Committee on Metro Manila Development, a PRA official was asked about possible adverse effects of reclamation by Rep. Lito Atienza, former Manila mayor. There is bound to be “an effect” but “systems“are in place to reduce the environmental impact of the projects, the official said. To which the congressman replied: “If all these projects are allowed to proceed, the effects will be catastrophic for all of us.”

Last February 4, President Duterte signed Executive Order No. 74 providing that while the PRA has the authority to approve all reclamation projects in the country, it is now under the Office of the President, instead of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The President himself will now have the final say on reclamation projects in Manila Bay and elsewhere.

The issuance of the executive order signals a stop to the seeming rush of so many reclamation projects following the evident success of the original reclamation carried out several administrations ago, which created the land on which now stand the newest structures and establishments in Manila, Pasay, and Parañaque City.

Unfortunately for them, however, these projects, which promise considerable profit for the city governments and business enterprises involved, are now caught in the middle of a massive program to clean up Manila Bay after decades of neglect. It will take many more than seven years, the original estimate of the DENR, to stop the pollution of Manila Bay by the untreated sewage pouring out of Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces into streams and rivers all ending in the bay.

Can rehabilitation and reclamation take place at the same time in Manila Bay? Or must one be postponed for the other? Between rehabilitation and the reclamation, many officials undoubtedly prefer the latter. But with Executive Order No. 74, President Duterte has assumed final responsibility for what happens next in Manila Bay.

We have confidence in his judgment in this critical matter of rehabilitation and reclamation of the bay.