By Psyche Roxas-Mendoza
Part Two
IT has been five years since the Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) won the Anvil Award of Excellence from the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) for its “Tullahan River: Cleaning it Up, Keeping it Clean” project.
And for Annie Baluyot, village council member of Barangay Ugong, Valenzuela, MNTC’s continuing commitment to help clean the 500-meter Tullahan River has led to no-worry-nights and days during the typhoon season.
“Before, when typhoons would cause the waters of Tullahan River to rise, it would take six to as much as 12 hours [overnight] before the flood subsided,” Baluyot said. “Now, because of the constant cleanup drives, the water would recede in just two to four hours.”
Tullahan River covers Baluyot’s barangay—as well as Barangay Talipapa in Quezon City and Barangay 164 in Caloocan City.
The barangay kagawad said the MNTC helped by providing cleaning materials, such as nets and brooms, and food for volunteers. “We are appreciative of the efforts of Cherry de la Reya, corporate sector manager of MNTC, and the rest of the MNTC staff.”
The MNTC said the toll road projects-based business launched a cleanup drive for Tullahan River as it “expands the notion that the expressway is not only the road, but also the communities around it.”
The MNTC said it installed barriers to prevent the intrusion of solid waste in the river and conducts regular cleanup drives with riverside communities. It, likewise, “educates residents along the Tullahan on advanced river cleaning and resource-management techniques in seminars and workshops that teach methods, such
as recycling.”
Regular cleanups
THE Tullahan River is one of the major river channels of Metro Manila.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said the 23-kilometer Tullahan River system traverses the cities of Malabon, Caloocan, Valenzuela and Quezon City. The river is also a major spillway of the La Mesa Dam, which is a source of water for Metro Manila, and drains into Manila Bay, a DENR document said.
The MNTC became the private- sector partner in the cleaning of the Tullahan River in 2010, under the EMB-DENR’s Adopt-an-Estero/water body project.
The DENR also partnered that year with the San Miguel Foundation Inc. (SMF) for the environmental improvement of a 1.7-km portion of the Tullahan River in Valenzuela City.
Baluyot narrated that a memorandum of agreement (MOA) was signed in 2010 between the MNTC, and the community leaders of Barangay Ugong, Barangay 164 and Barangay Talipapa, together with the EMB-DENR and the local government units (LGUs) of Valenzuela City, Quezon City and Caloocan City.
But according to Baluyot, it took time before community residents warmed up to the idea of cleaning the Tullahan River.
“Some dismissed the project as pure politics,” Baluyot said in Tagalog. “In time, we convinced the people through the holding of seminars on solid-waste management, coupled with memories of Typhoon Ondoy’s rampage in 2009 and the mountain of trash it emptied on the riverbank.”
Since then, Baluyot added, there have been regular cleanup drives every third or fourth Saturday of the month.
“It didn’t matter whether it was raining heavily or there was Habagat,” she said. “We used the boats supplied by the MMDA [Metropolitan Manila Development Authority] and dredged the river.”
The Tullahan project has three cleaning stations. One is at Mindanao Avenue, the bridge there which serves also as boundary of Barangay Bagbag, Quezon City, and Barangay 164, Caloocan City. Another station is Maceda Bridge along Road 1 and includes Barangay 164, Caloocan City. The third station is Tulay na Bato, the bridge across Road 10 and Maligaya Street and which serves as the boundary of Barangay Ugong, Valenzuela, and Barangay 164, Caloocan City, where riprapping has been done.
The EMB-DENR installed two garbage traps at Maceda Bridge at the boundary of Barangay Talipapa in Quezon City and Barangay Ugong in Valenzuela City.
The garbage traps installed at the Maceda Bridge are in the form of grills made of heavy-duty fishnet measuring 30 meters wide and 1-meter tall.
Running parallel to the river, the water under Maceda Bridge is an effective spot for catching garbage. The water flows into inner city inlets, draining into the Pasig River and then to Manila Bay.
DENR water experts said there was marked improvement in the water quality of Mindanao Avenue Station, Maceda Bridge station and the Tulay na Bato (stone bridge) station.
Initiative, caring
BALUYOT attributes the relative success of the Tullahan River clean-up project to “initiative and caring of the community residents.”
“This is the help we can give to the national government and to the LGUs,” she said.
Baluyot added that youth volunteers in Barangay Ugong, numbering 65, are taught early to care for the river and to see themselves as the “next-generation river protectors.”
Baluyot said there are now volunteers in all three communities.
“We started with the homeowners’ associations of the different barangays around Tullahan River, especially those in Maceda Bridge and Tulaykawayan,”she said. “Now we have women’s groups, the San Juan dela Cruz Cooperative from Barangay Ugong, and the PTA officers from Barangay Caloocan.”
Choleng Juan, chairman of Barangay Talipapa, Quezon City, said they convince their residents not to throw garbage in the river and to segregate waste.
“Residents now sell their di nabubulok [nonbiodegradable] as scrap and give to their pet pigs the nabubulok [biodegradable] waste,” Juan said.
Kit Ventura, MNTC assistant vice president for corporate communications, said during a discussion with an EMB executive the company is now on its sixth year of participating in the Tullahan River cleanup program.
“The participation of all the communities cannot be done by one agency alone. It cannot be done by MNTC only or the DENR only or the communities,” Ventura said. “What is needed is that we should all be in this together. Also, when you promise to help, you must deliver so you can gain the trust of the communities. Teamwork is important.”
He expressed optimism that the Adopt-an-Estero program can be replicated in other waterways.
According to Ventura, MNTC parent Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) is also helping in the cleanup of the coastal road near the company’s Cavite Expressway project. “There is also a river there and they are now planting mangroves to attract fish. We are looking at other things we can do. Yes, the program can be replicated, with the help, of course, of the DENR.”
MPTC subsidiary MNTC is owned by Metro Pacific Investments Corp. It holds the concession rights to construct, operate and maintain the North Luzon Expressway and the Subic–Clark–Tarlac Expressway. The company was acquired by the Metro Pacific group from the Lopez Group of Cos. in 2008.
To be concluded
Image credits: Nonie Reyes