Manila-Bataan coastal road pushed

MALOLOS CITY, Philippines  – Bulacan Gov. Wilhelmino Alvarado said yesterday a proposed coastal road that will link Manila and Bataan is more feasible now because fishpond operators are willing to sell their ponds at a lower price.  

“Prices has gone down from P200,000 to P100,000 per hectare these days,” Alvarado said.

Alfredo Lunes, a councilman of the coastal village of Pugad in Hagonoy, said at least 80 hectares of fishponds in Barangay Masukol in Paombong had been damaged in the past two years.

Another 180 hectares in the coastal villages of Tibaguin and Pugad in Hagonoy were also damaged.

Lunes said fishponds fronting the Manila Bay in Barangay Sapang Kawayan in Masantol, Pampanga suffered the same fate.

Alvarado said the coastal road is also seen to prevent flooding in Bulacan and Pampanga.

“It is like hitting two birds with one stone,” he said.

Alvarado said the coastal road is better than the proposed P2.2-B Valenzuela-Obando-Meycauayan flood control project, which President Aquino said will be completed by 2015. 

He said the government has invested billions of pesos in flood control projects in Calooocan, Malabon and Navotas, but it only diverted flooding to nearby areas like Valenzuela, Obando and Meycauayan City.

“We need an integrated and comprehensive project, not a piecemeal project,” he said.  

Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson earlier told The STAR that the coastal road project is far from the radar of the DPWH. 

Singson said the project, which will traverse through fishponds in Bulacan, Pampanga and Bataan, is costly.