Conclusion
The man at the other end of the phone had a sunny voice in an afternoon of dark skies and intermittent rain.
“Yes, the water on Concepcion Creek recedes fast, in a matter of 15 to 30 minutes,” said Oliver Villamena from the Marikina City Environment Management Office.
Before, once the water rises because of typhoons or the monsoon, it would take two days for Concepcion Creek to ebb to its normal level of 1/2 meter, he said.
And like his local government counterparts in the communities surrounding Tullahan River and Lingunan Creek, Villamena credits the Adopt-an-Estero/Water Body Program (AEWBP), spearheaded by the Environmental Management Bureau-Department of Environment and Natural Resources (EMB-DENR), for the “quick rise-quicker ebb” behavior of Concepcion Creek.
The Adopt-an-Estero project was started in 2010 to “transform heavily clogged and highly polluted creeks and waterbodies to livable communities, actively engaged in water quality and solid-waste management.”
P90 million
The clincher in the concept is the inclusion of private companies and corporations that acted as private- sector partners, which “adopted” an estero or water body near their plants. Adoption entails the lending of financial and technical support toward the cleaning of these waterways as part of the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) thrust.
For Concepcion Creek, private- sector partner Petron provided a P90-million funding assistance spread over a five-year period (2011 to November 2016) or an annual financial support of P18 million.
The amount, so far, has been spent for infrastructure development for the repair and rehabilitation of Concepcion Creek. These include riprap and restoration of a 3-meter legal easement, dredging, desilting and surface cleanup, plus donation of cleanup tools for partner-schools and home owners’ associations (HOAs) in Marikina.
Petron also donated a backhoe to Marikina City for regular maintenance of its creeks.
The Petron Corp.—together with the City Environmental Management Office (Cemo) of Marikina—provided support for public-awareness campaigns through the conduct of seminars and distribution of EMB materials on climate change, proper solid-waste management, and septage and sewage management.
The Marikina Cemo and EMB conducted lecture and orientation seminars on solid-waste and water- quality management.
Three communities
Regular cleanup drives play a significant part in the social lives of residents in three creekside communities: Concepcion Uno, Parang, and Santo Niño—all heavily populated barangays.
Concepcion Creek, one of the major tributaries of Marikina River, is about 3,110 meters in length. It traverses A. de Guzman Street in Concepcion Uno, all the way to Sumulong Highway.
Catalino Olanio, 64, has lived in Marikina for 15 years. His job is to guard the creek from taong pasaway or people who throw trash and other garbage in Concepcion Creek.
Married and with four children, Olanio said he actively participates in the river cleanup drives because his house is near the creek. “We need to keep the creek clean, so that there will be no floods, so I stop children from throwing things there.”
He added that the presence of the local government of Marikina and a private partner, like Petron, convinced him that the Adopt-an-Estero program of the DENR-EMB was solid.
Concepcion Uno has a regular Saturday cleanup. “Every Saturday, we collect the garbage and grass, as well as rotting plants and the broken branches of trees that accumulate in the river,” Olanio said.
MRF, River Council
Marikina’s Cemo has helped establish an Ecological Solid Waste Management facility for all 42 HOAs in the city.
Situated at the Agora Complex in Barangay Santo Niño, Marikina City, the centralized Materials
Recovery Facility (MRF) includes a solid waste-transfer station, drop-off center, composting facility and a recycling facility.
“It receives solid waste collected from 16 barangays for final sorting, processing and storing of compostable and recyclable materials,” Villamena said.
He added that the segregated recyclables are then picked up and sold by junkshop dealers within 24 hours. “The resulting residual waste is then loaded to the larger vehicles of the private hauler, which then bring the waste to the landfill in a matter of hours of its receipt.”
Other than an MRF, the city also has a Marikina River Management Council. It is composed of the EMB-DENR, Laguna Lake Development Authority, Petron, local government of Marikina, all barangay captains along the adopted creek, representatives of the Department of Education-Marikina and selected teachers from schools along the adopted creek.
Among its duties and responsibilities is to develop a comprehensive plan intended to reduce pollution and improve the water quality at the Marikina River starting in Concepcion Creek and other creeks that will be identified under the program.
By the end of the partnership with Petron, the Marikina River is expected to be in continuous compliance to the DENR Standard for Class C Waters. This means that the water is good enough to propagate the growth of fish and other aquatic resources.
Coordination, expansion
Since its launch in 2010, the Adopt-an-Estero program has achieved partnerships under 640 memoranda of agreement, resulting in the cleanup and maintenance of 408 esteros and water bodies all over the country, EMB-DENR officials said. EMB NCR Director Vizminda Osorio said her team supervises the EMB’s regular
water-quality monitoring of adopted esteros in NCR.
Efforts are also under way to expand on the initiatives of the Adopt-an-Estero/Water Body program to include the participation of organizations, like the SEED4COM (Let’s Do It Philippines), International Coastal Clean-up and other organizations, EMB Director Gilbert Gonzales said.
“There is a nationwide cleanup of rivers and creeks along barangays in cities and municipalities on September 17 under the ‘Bayan ko, Linis ko’ program,” Gonzales said.
Residents of creekside communities remain upbeat about the prospects of keeping their esteros, creeks and rivers clean.
Kagawad Annie Baluyot of Tullahan’s Barangay Ugong, Valenzuela, said: “Now that there is a new administration and a new President, we wish to remind all national agencies and LGUs, including private partners, that we, in the communities, are always willing to help clean our rivers and other water bodies.”
Image credits: Nonie Reyes