NGO urges DENR  to bare P100-B  Manila Bay plan

A non-government organization urged the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to disclose to the public the master plan of the P100-billion Manila Bay Rehabilitation Project to prevent anomalies in the ambitious program to clean up the polluted bay. 

The members of the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) said the fishermen that would be affected by the clean up of Manila Bay have not been consulted about the project that seeks to restore the bay’s fishing grounds to its healthy state.

Fernando Hicap, chairman of Pamalakaya, said their group has 9, 200 members in the Manila Bay area, and some 87,000 members nationwide and the DENR have not consulted the affected sectors regarding the project.

“This is the first time we came across with this P100-billion Manila Bay Rehabilitation Project. Pamalakaya leaders and members in the areas got to know that such plan exists and was already completed three years ago,” Hicap claimed.

The oral argument started yesterday at the Supreme Court (SC) on the class suit filed against the government over the pollution of Manila Bay,

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza and other government officials have asked the SC to reverse a Court of Appeals (CA) decision that required the government to come up with a consolidated plan to rehabilitate Manila Bay.

Lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr. represented the complainants during Tuesday’s oral argument at the SC.

Oposa, a member of the Executive Planning Committee for the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE), urged the Court to maintain the CA ruling and form a committee that will monitor the implementation of the action plan drawn by the government to clean up the “excessively polluted” Manila Bay.

Atienza welcomed the class suit filed against the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and other government agencies before the Supreme Court by a group of concerned citizens for the immediate rehabilitation of the Manila Bay.

“I definitely welcome this class suit and I would like to congratulate the environmental group that lodged this case because they know, as the DENR knows as well, the problem besetting the Manila Bay,” Atienza said during the en banc hearing of the case by the Supreme Court.

Atienza said, the degradation of Manila Bay has been going on for decades and that its rehabilitation must start by addressing the root cause of the problem, which is the lack of sewage treatment facilities, which should have been established before by water concessionaires.

The degradation of Manila Bay is largely attributed to domestic waste coming from households and industries. To this day, household wastes are drained directly into esteros, creeks and rivers without undergoing treatment. These untreated wastes, including waste from industries and agriculture, go directly into Pasig River and Laguna Lake until they end u in Manila Bay.

For this, Atienza called on Metro Manila’s water concessionaires to fast track the setting up of a waste treatment facility to finally make it possible to start an honest-to-goodness cleanup of Manila Bay.