Protest vs Manila Bay projects sends 85-year-old artist back to front line
STUDENTS, artists, urban poor groups and heritage conservationists formed a human chain facing the famous Manila Bay sunset on Tuesday to campaign against reclamation projects in the area.
The event was spearheaded by Save Our Sunset (SOS) Manila Bay, a coalition that was recently revived to fight the consortium agreement between the Manila city government and developer Manila Goldcoast Development Corp. to reclaim and commercialize some 148 hectares of the bay.
Eighty-five-year-old Betsy Westendorp, a painter who opposed a similar project in 1992, brought her easel and paints to capture the Feb. 12 sunset on the canvas in support of the campaign.
“I started painting the sunset in the 1970s when I was living in an apartment facing the bay. The sunset was so marvelous,” Westendorp recalled.
Fr. John Leydon, parish priest of Malate church and member of SOS Manila Bay, said the event was “an opportunity for the people to experience what is rightfully theirs.”
Leydon warned that the reclamation—which he denounced as the “privatization of the commons”—would deprive the people of an accessible pub- lic site for viewing the sunset.
“The bay is frequented by families, friends and, every Valentine season, by lovers who watch the sunset together. We cannot allow a project that will impede the people’s enjoyment of this communal space, where people, regardless of their wealth, converge to appreciate the beauty of nature,” said Jojo Carabeo, spokesperson of the People’s Network for the Integrity of Coastal Habitats and Ecosystems.
“These reclamation projects do not answer the people’s need for security of shelter and livelihood,” added Tet Sambale, president of a homeowners association in Malate who also joined the human chain.
“Development for whom? Who will benefit when these projects involve casinos and condominiums?” she said.
Environment and civic groups also raised concerns over the “propriety of the process” leading to the approval of these coastal developments.
Reclamation projects in Manila were banned by the city government when the PEA-Amari scandal broke out in 1992. The city council, however, overturned the ban in 2011, allowing Manila Goldcoast Development Corp. to draw up plans for its so-called Solar City project.
Clemente Bautista of Kalikasan cited the pollution and flooding of coastal areas, the displacement of fishing communities, as well as the corruption behind “shady deals to give public lands to big businesses,” as among the serious downsides of reclamation projects.
Under the national plan of the Philippine Reclamation Authority, some 26,000 hectares or 70 percent of its target area for reclamation will be implemented on Manila Bay, the group said.
Meanwhile, reelectionist Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim had put up yellow streamers in front of Malate church, the nearby Rajah Sulayman Park and nearby areas, all bearing the message: “No reclamation between Manila Yacht Club and US Embassy.”
Lim maintained that the Goldcoast project will reclaim only a portion in front of the MYC and Philippine Navy headquarters and that this new development will jut out toward to the sea and will not run parallel to Roxas Boulevard.