WB: Baguio air most polluted in RP

BAGUIO CITY – Here’s bad news for urbanites seeking a refuge in this mountain city long known as the country’s summer capital.

A World Bank study has found Baguio City’s air as the most polluted in the country, with the highest volume of PM10 particles generated by diesel engines, power generation from fossil fuel and burning of solid wastes, compared to Metro Manila and the cities of Cebu and Davao.

Robert Vance Pulley, World Bank country director, told a forum on the Clean Air Act here last Friday, that the city is incurring annual losses of about P500 million due to health cases.

Pulley cited a four-city 2001 study, "Estimates of Health Impact and Costs by PM," as showing that a growing number of Baguio residents were already manifesting symptoms of respiratory illnesses.

The city, he said, had 311 recorded cases of chronic bronchitis in 2001, 49 of which resulted in deaths.

Although Baguio is comparatively the smallest in terms of size and population among the cities studied, it accounted for a PM10 level of 75.2 micrograms per cubic meter, compared to Metro Manila’s 65.8, Cebu City’s 45 and Davao City’s 39.8.

Baguio is about 5,000 feet above sea level. It has a daytime population of 300,000 compared to Metro Manila’s 10.04 million, Davao City’s 1.018 million and Cebu City’s 730,000, according to the World Bank study.

According to the World Bank, the combined losses of all four places from pollution-related health cases have reached about P22.9 billion.

Engineer Rolando Reyes, chief of the Air Quality Management Unit of the city’s Environment and Management Bureau, however, said the high PM10 level is only confined to the central business district.

Environment and Natural Resources Undersecretary Arturo Valdez said the World Bank findings surprised him.

"I have always remembered Baguio as a city rich in the environment and pollution-free," he said.

Valdez, however, gave assurances that the government would strictly enforce the Clean Air Act by ensuring the quality of fuel whose benzene and aromatic content has been lowered.