by Leonard Andrei S. Cabalona
Volunteers from Philippine Coast Guard pick up garbage washed ashore as part of Manila Bay Dolomite beach cleanup. (Photo courtesy of THE STAR/ Walter Bollozos)
Volunteers and private companies took part in a cleanup drive on Manila Bay dolomite beach on September 17.
In a press release, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said that the cleanup covering the 500-meter beach front yielded more than 4,500 sacks of garbage.
More than 4,000 volunteers participated in the cleanup, which mostly came from Manila city government, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Philippine Army, Philippine Air Force, Philippine Coast Guard, Philippine National Police and its Maritime Group, Maynilad, Manila Water, and Dragon Boat Federation of the Philippines, as well as private individuals.
Prior to this, DENR-Metropolitan Environmental Office’s (MEO) records show that 147,939 sacks of garbage were collected from July 12 to September 14, which include 83,109 sacks of water hyacinth and 2,224 sacks of marine debris.
“However big and daunting the task is, we can make a difference by bringing communities and people together to clean up beaches. Proof of this are organizations and individuals coming together at the Baywalk Dolomite Beach,” Rodelina de Villa, OIC director of DENR-MEO West said.
The said activity was held in time with the International Coastal Cleanup Day, which has been observed every third Sunday of September through the Presidential Proclamation No. 470 signed by former President Gloria Arroyo in 2003.
Before the event, DENR posted in its Facebook page an invitation for cleanup participants. But many criticized the move, saying that their taxes went to a nonsense project.
“Sinayang nyo na ang buwis na binayad namin para sa walang kwentang dolomite beach na yan, tapos maghahanap kayo ng volunteers para maglinis? At mag bring your own [cleaning] paraphernalia pa?” a netizen commented.
(You already wasted the taxes we paid for that nonsense dolomite beach project, then you will ask for volunteers to clean the area? And asking them to bring their own cleaning paraphernalia, too?)
Battle for Manila Bay
Current efforts to rehabilitate Manila Bay can be traced back to January 2019, when DENR and the Department of the Interior and Local Government launched the ‘Battle for Manila Bay’ initiative.
This was in response to the mandamus order released by Supreme Court on December 18, 2008.
The said ruling ordered 13 government agencies to clean up, rehabilitate, and preserve the Manila Bay and make it fit for swimming and other recreational activities.
Included in the initiative’s goals was reducing the bay’s coliform level by closing establishments emitting polluted water, building a treatment facility to clean wastewater before dumping them, and rehabilitating 17 river systems that drains into the bay.
Controversies
In 2020, the project raised some eyebrows when dolomite sand from Alcoy, Cebu started pouring on the bay’s shore, questioning the government’s priorities in the midst of a pandemic.
With an allotted budget of P389 million in 2020 and P265 million in 2021, various sectors called for the government to reallocate it to distance learning, poverty alleviation, and COVID-19 response.
“Kung halimbawa may P389 million na ibibigay ang pamahalaan sa departamento, sigurado ako na malaking bahagi niyan ay mapupunta sa pangangailangan ng mga gadgets. Isa pa, ang pag-print ng mga modules…” said then-Department of Education Secretary Leonor Briones.
(If for instance, the government will give P389 million to the agency, I’m sure a big part of that will go to gadgets. Another thing is for printing modules…)
“[…]Parang napaka-insensitive na gagawin mo iyan [dolomite beach] sa height ng pandemic, na ang daming nagugutom, ang daming naghihirap…Ang suggestion ko nga, 5,000 [pesos] to the poorest families habang naka-lockdown pa tayo. Ang sagot nila, walang pera…” then-vice President Leni Robredo said in her radio program.
(It seems insensitive to do that [dolomite beach] at the height of the pandemic, where a lot is going hungry, a lot are struggling. My suggestion was to give P5,000 to the poorest families while we are still on lockdown. They said there is no money.)
“In an absence of an Environmental Impact Statement System, the DENR should just rechannel the funds for COVID-19 assistance to the most heavily affected by the pandemic,” scientist group Agham-Advocates of Science and Technology for the People said in a statement.
But then-Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque stated that it is too late to transfer the bay’s rehabilitation fund to COVID-19 response.
“Nasimulan na po ‘yan, eh so kinakailangan tapusin na po ‘yan,” said the spokesperson.
(It’s already begun so we need to finish it now.)
“Ang mga nare-realign eh yung mga hindi pa po magsisimulang mga proyekto,” he added.
(The only things we can realign are the funds of those projects that have not started yet.)
Meanwhile, InfraWatch Ph, a public policy think tank, casted doubts on the whereabouts of the budget’s unused funds.
“Hindi ho ‘yan aabot ng P389 million. Which is why we are asking, where is the remainder of the project price going to go?” convenor Terry Ridon asked in a webinar led by a coalition of environmental groups.
(The expenses will not reach P389 million. Which is why we are asking, where is the remainder of the project price going to go?)
Other issues that hounded the project include the health risks of dolomite, ‘washing out’ of the sand, and a faulty signage that went viral online.
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KEYWORDS:
Manila Bay
Dolomite Beach
DENR
Cleanup
Garbage
International Coastal Cleanup Day
Battle for Manila Bay
Dolomite
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