Choked

There isn’t really much we can do about the recession now gripping the main economies of the world — save perhaps to employ policies that will mitigate its worst effects on our people.

Our economy is simply too small to influence the unfolding of this worst contraction since the Great Depression of the 1930s. We are at the mercy of volatile prices for commodities, shrinking markets for our exports and a wave of unemployment that is expected to wash across the world’s economies.

Fortunately, our economy has shown itself to be sturdy enough to weather this storm. Our financial institutions did not buckle during the worst episode of the financial turmoil. Our government did not find the need to engage in emergency borrowing during the most onerous period.

All we have to do is to ride out the next few months until the most troubled economies recover their footing and a new cycle of growth begins to take hold.

Riding out the recession, however, does not mean we sit idle for the next couple of years. We have to retrain our slightly dislocated labor force so that we do not suffer from structural unemployment when the global economy resumes its growth. Structural unemployment happens when the labor force does not possess the new skills an evolving economy requires.

We can also begin to reconfigure our agriculture to anticipate the new opportunities that might be emerging. These new opportunities include a growing demand for crops that might provide new sources for renewable energy.

In 2009, it appears, we might finally reach the tipping point in reversing a long process of environmental degradation. That long process is most evident around the metropolitan region where both the Laguna de Bay and the Manila Bay were choked by fish pens, where air quality has worsened, where river quality deteriorated in the face of unchecked pollution.

The metropolitan area, until a few years ago, was definitely choking: the air heavily polluted, the waterways poisoned, the streets crowded out by undisciplined population growth.

A few weeks ago, I looked at aerial photos of Laguna de Bay, Pasig River and the Manila Bay before DENR Secretary Lito Atienza began an aggressive program of dismantling fish pens owned by politically influential interests. They were horrifying pictures.

Laguna de Bay was nearly entirely fenced off, leaving municipal fishermen almost no place to fish. The lake has been the victim of colonization by powerful fish pen operators who patrolled their fences with heavily armed guards.

The same was true of the Manila Bay coastline. As a testament to the politically-driven colonization of the bay’s waters, the fish pens were layered according to presidencies: closer to shore was the “Cory belt”, followed by the “Ramos belt” of pens and them the “Erap belt” farther out.

The layers of pens kept trash trapped to the shores, dirtied the water all around the pens with excess feed, and destabilized the ecology of the bay. They deprived the poor municipal fishermen of catch and contributed to the flooding of the metropolis.

To clear the waters, Atienza formed the environmental equivalent of the famous “Untouchables” that, in the US many decades before, cleared out the Mafia networks. It was called the Manila Bay Law Enforcement Team (MBLET). The group was completely unimpressed by the political credentials of those who grabbed water areas from the public sphere and expropriated them for private profit.

More recent aerial photographs of Manila Bay (and also Laguna de Bay) show the success of the MBLET. With support from the local governments, the enforcement units tore away the pens, opened up the waters for municipal fishermen and cleared the pollution. Now Manila Bay is no longer choked.

Laguna de Bay has also been cleared. The water is clearer. The flotsam that choked the Pasig River has been removed. That will benefit the communities dependent on harvesting from waters.

In addition, the MBLET last month closed down eight factories operating without water treatment facilities and dumping waste into the Obando and Marilao rivers. The Marilao river has been listed as one of the ten dirtiest rivers in the world. By next year, that waterway should be off the notorious list.

The Pasig River has also been dredged. Vigilant enforcement of environmental regulations might soon return this river to life. That will allow the overcrowded metropolitan region to breathe a little better and relieve all of us of that curious stink that emanates from all the waterways in the city.

We hope Atienza maintains that maverick, irreverent attitude that made clearing Manila Bay and Laguna de Bay possible. It has been an attitude that paid no heed to claims of political influence made by those who stole public waters and nearly succeeded in choking the metropolis.

We will need that unstoppable attitude in dealing with other environmental concerns elsewhere. Illegal loggers and kaingin farmers have continued to reduce our forest cover. They need to be shown the face of political will.

As do the casual, small-time miners whose primitive techniques cause most harm to the environment. They are to mining as the kaingeros are to the forests.

We did see some impressive political will exercised in the case of Boracay where, despite all the political pressures on him, Atienza enforced a moratorium on new structures, having seen the degradation of the tourist island’s mangrove lining and water table. Let’s hope that is kept up.