Ynares said he wanted to make sure that the Laguna de Bay domain is preserved. The lake’s 14,000 hectares are scattered in 29 municipalities surrounding the freshwater basin.
The lake is a 90,000-hectare body of water, with at least 100 streams draining into it. It cradles a region of about 292,000 hectares encompassing six provinces, 12 cities, 40 municipalities and 2,675 barangays, 187 of which are within the lakeshore towns. It is bounded by the provinces of Laguna to the south and Rizal to the north. It is situated at the heart of the CALABARZON Region where approximately six million people live and close to 4,000 industries are doing business.
Laguna Lake’s most dominant use is in fisheries. From 1997 to 2000 it yielded an estimated 37,000 to 47,000 metric tons of fishes. Crustaceans and mollusks also flourish in the lake. The region also benefits from it in terms of power generation, domestic water supply, transport route, reservoir for floodwater, irrigation and industrial cooling, among others.
The value of these goods and services prompted the new general manager to issue the directive that is designed to recover and keep intact the lake’s public domain which is as big as Clark Airbase in Pampanga.