Green

We knew this in our guts. Now we have a pretty impressive number attached to it.

According to a Japanese-funded report, our economy wastes P2.5 billion each month due to infernal traffic jams in the metropolitan area. The more traffic snarls, the more the economy bleeds.

That number caught the administration’s attention. After three years of doing nothing, adding no new road space, doing nothing to improve rail services, postponing contracts for new light rail lines and connector roads, the Palace now says the traffic situation will be relieved. How that will be done, we wait with bated breath.

Now we are told our economy loses billions more due to poor management of the estuaries that crisscross the metropolitan area. Government should not have shelved the dredging programs and acted on relocating informal settlers choking the waterways.

I am sure we will soon be told that problem too will be addressed. But when?

So far, government chose to rely on meager government-private sector efforts to help clean up the waterways. Now we are told not all is right in the sparse programs in place.

A 2012 report by the Commission on Audit (COA) faults the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC) for wasting millions of pesos worth of recycling equipment because it was able to put up only one functioning materials recovery facility (MRF) of the ten it committed to over the past four years. Without fully functioning MRFs, the cleanup of the Pasig River cannot possibly progress. A complete chain of MRFs are necessary to achieve the clean river zones as a first step to finally cleaning up the Pasig.

The company that bagged the contract in 2009 to build the ten MRFs actually succeeded in building only four, even as they purchased the equipment for all of them. COA inspectors found that of the four, three were not operational and were in different stages of decay. The three MRFs are those located at the DENR compound in Quezon City and the Polytechnic University and Cardinal Sin Village, both in Manila. They are mostly inhabited by stray animals.

The COA likewise found something amiss at another “green” project: the La Mesa Ecopark in Quezon City.

The ABS-CBN Foundation, Inc. (AFI) manages the Ecopark.  According to the memorandum of agreement that made this project possible, profits from the operation of this “green” enterprise will be shared by AFI, the MWSS and the Quezon City government.

After many years in operation, COA discovered that the 40% MWSS share and the 30% share of Quezon City have not been paid by AFI. In a 2011 report, the COA noted that AFI should have paid the MWSS, owner of the property, some P8.3 million for the period 2004 to the first half of 2009.

In addition, state auditors find no supporting document to show that either the MWSS Board of Trustees or the La Mesa Executive Board allowed the AFI to commandeer 15% of the revenues as “management fee.” That enlarges the share of AFI in the revenue sharing arrangement, even as no revenues have been remitted to the MWSS.

Something is amiss here, and we deserve an explanation from PRRC and AFI.

Tough

Speaking of the Pasig River, new Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada indicates that he is inclined to have the oil depots moved out of the Pandacan area. A recent oil spill from one of the smaller depots demonstrates how hazardous storing oil alongside the river could be.

People who know Estrada well say he is really cut out for the role of mayor. He was a tough executive when he served as mayor of San Juan. Now he demonstrates the same toughness as he starts out his term as Mayor of Manila.

In his first couple of days as mayor, he sacked several police officers: District Station Commander Supt. Alex Navarette over allegations of corruption made by street vendors, Supt. Ernesto Tendero Jr. of the Moriones station allegedly for extorting money from the poor, and MPD chief Rey Nava for failing to solve the traffic gridlock in the city.

Even as the city government is saddled with a P3 billion debt incurred during the tenure of Alfredo Lim, Estrada moved quickly to begin relocating informal setters along the esteros.  Several programs for dredging the clogged waterways are well in motion, with the support of both the DPWH and the MMDA.

Estrada appears ready with a bagful of new ideas for rehabilitation a city that has fallen into serious disrepair because of poor management. He imagines making Manila Bay a center of commerce, establishing night markets to enable vendors to do business after traffic subsides and, of course, cleaning up the city of all the accumulated filth.

Estrada burst out of the opening gates like a racehorse eager to run. His energy level is surprisingly high. Hopeful Manilans hope that energy will be sustained.

At this point, it seems, the only thing that can stop Estrada is a disqualification case that, rather surprisingly, was given due course by the Supreme Court even as the same case was earlier trashed by the Comelec.

The former mayor, Alfredo Lim, initially offered to be Estrada’s adviser. When that offer was spurned by the new mayor, Lim filed a motion to intervene in support of the disqualification case.

Most lawyers are confident, however, that the pardon granted Estrada by former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, will withstand scrutiny by the high court. That pardon fully restores Estrada his civil and political rights.