‘Gourami, please buy some. It’s fresh; it’s alive!” a man in his 40s cried out at a public market in Candaba, Pampanga.
A freshwater fish, gourami is seldom sold in Metro Manila market nowadays. Some fish vendors are even oblivious about its conservation status.
When asked by this writer where it came from, the vendor quickly said: “From the river. Look at it, it’s fresh,” he added.
The vendor was referring to the 260-kilometer Pampanga River, the second-largest river in Luzon and the country’s fourth-longest river. It traverses the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan and Nueva Ecija.
Feeding the Pampanga River are smaller rivers and streams from the Sierra Madre Mountain Range. Its mouth that drains water to Manila Bay is in Hagonoy, Bulacan.
The Pampanga River was highlighted, along with Candaba Swamp, by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) during the celebration of the World Wetlands Day on February 2.
Incidentally, Pampanga River is just one of the 17 principal rivers being eyed for massive cleanup as part of the ambitious Manila Bay rehabilitation program, a P47-billion, seven-year campaign to save the country’s historic bay from environmental degradation.
Economic importance
Rivers are economically important. They are major sources of natural food—fish, shellfish and other food that naturally occur in rivers, including fruits and vegetables.
Rivers, or healthy rivers for that matter, are key to the survival not only of the human race but of other wildlife, as well.
The interconnectivity of ecosystems, citing the case of the Pampanga River and the Candaba Swamp, highlights the importance of protecting and conserving them.
During the dry season, the Candaba Swamp dries up, allowing farmers in many areas like those in Barangay Paligui to cultivate their rice paddies. Just before the rainy season sets in, the farmers make their once-a-year rice harvest.
As the Candaba Swamp acts like a sponge that stores excess water from Pampanga River during the rainy season, or in the event of excessive heavy rains induced by typhoons, the swamp becomes a virtual “water world.”
Once the flood subsides, the swamp is blessed with the abundance from the river—different species of native fish, freshwater shrimp and other natural food that help farmers cope with economic hardship.
“During the rainy season, most farmers turn to fish. The swamp teems with fish from the Pampanga River,” said Virgilio Manalili, chairman of Barangay Paligui in Candaba, Pampanga, in an interview with the BusinessMirror on February 2.
Threatened
However, the Candaba Swamp and Pampanga River are both threatened by unbridled development.
In the case of the swamp, it is affected by massive land conversion for agriculture purposes, and extreme weather events—whether excessive rainfall or a long season of drought that exceeds its water storage capacity.
The Pampanga River is threatened by pollution from garbage, untreated wastewater and other pollutants. The situation of the river mirrors that of other rivers in the country.
Fortunately, the river is still healthy enough to provide important ecosystem services that other rivers can no longer provide.
“It is still teeming with fish and other natural food, more importantly. That is why you can still buy native fish in the market. They are caught from the rivers here in Pampanga,” said Joel Pelayo of the Livestock Division and Rice Program of the Department of Agriculture- Candaba Office.
Ecosystem services
Director Crisanta Marlene Rodriguez of the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau said rivers provide various ecosystem services essential to human survival.
Besides food and drinking water, rivers provide irrigation that is important to agriculture.
In some provinces, rivers also provide a means of transportation.
“In Metro Manila, it could provide alternative means of transportation,” she told the BusinessMirror in an interview on February 11.
Speaking in mixed English and Filipino, Rodriguez, a forester, underscored the importance of keeping rivers healthy.
Used properly, rivers can be drivers of growth. They can be a major source of job or livelihood.
She said the key is having a balance between natural-resource exploitation and use to ensure sustainability.
“We really need to strike a balance. Like the human body, if you abuse the river, it will die,” she explained.
Dying rivers
In Metro Manila, rivers are severely polluted, or degraded, that in some of them, fish cannot possibly survive or even if they do, they are unsafe for human consumption because of contamination.
The Tullahan River—which starts at the La Mesa Reservoir in Quezon City and flows through Malabon and Valenzuela and empties into the Manila Bay—was once declared by scientists as biologically dead owing to pollution.
The once-mighty Pasig River has been the subject of massive rehabilitation for decades in a bid to revive this once economically important water body.
The Marikina River is heavily silted because of the denudation of the forest in the surrounding watershed. This prompted the government to finally establish the Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape.
Leon Dulce, national coordinator of the environmental group Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, said the degradation of the country’s rivers is caused by pollution, siltation and the buildup of massive infrastructure.
Major pollution sources include commercial, middle-income residential and industrial establishments “from ridge to reef.”
This means that heavy siltation is caused by the denudation of forest cover, massive disturbance of topsoil and tailings spill caused by projects, such as big mines and mega dams, he said.
“The national government has to be able to assess the risks of these projects and impose heavy regulations on them given the very degraded state of our watersheds,” Dulce said.
River, estero cleanups
On Tuesday Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu, tasked to lead the Manila Bay Inter-Agency Task Force, called on mayors of cities and municipalities surrounding Manila Bay to do their share in the rehabilitation by cleaning up rivers and estuaries leading to the heavily polluted water body.
In a statement, Cimatu said the cleanup of all 47 esteros and all rivers that contribute to the pollution of Manila Bay is important, as he vowed to do it even one estero and one river at a time.
Along with Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año, Cimatu met with 178 city and municipal mayors during the Local Executives’ Forum on the Manila Bay Cleanup, Rehabilitation and Preservation Program held in Manila on February 11.
During the forum, Cimatu reminded the local chief executives of their duty to implement environmental laws and to clear waterways of informal settlers, who contribute to water pollution.
Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, provides that local government units (LGUs) are primarily responsible for waste segregation and disposal.
Cimatu also urged LGUs to identify the sources of water pollution in their localities and do something about it.
“Once we clean the esteros and rivers, garbage will not go out to Manila Bay. We’ll make it a point that the water that reaches Manila Bay is clean,” Cimatu said.
The Pambansang Lakas ng Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) agrees. It said that a massive cleanup and rehabilitation of rivers are important.
However, it pointed out that these should be done to boost fish security and sustain the livelihood of small fishermen who depend on rivers and other water bodies for food and as a major source of income.
In an e-mail to the BusinessMirror on February 12, Pamalakaya national coordinator Fernando Hicap said rivers, along with other bodies of water, must also undergo a rehabilitation in order to protect the livelihood of the fisherfolk and ensure food security for all.
“While the government is waging a massive rehabilitation campaign in Manila Bay, connected rivers, such as Pasig River and Pampanga River, must also be cleaned because they also serve as passageways of pollution and various wastes coming from industrial and commercial establishments.
“The government must formulate a scientific and holistic program that will restore the capacity of rivers to shelter aquatic and other fishery resources,” he said.
Multifaceted problems
Jimely Flores, in-country science consultant at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a United States-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group, said major causes of the problems besetting Philippine rivers are the large dam constructions, massive quarryings and pollution brought about by indiscriminate dumping of garbage and agrochemicals.
Saving the country’s dying rivers, she said, is easier said than done.
“It is difficult because of complex stakeholder landscape,” she said, adding that most of the country’s rivers have not been fully explored and studied in terms of biodiversity and their economic value, or the ecosystem services they provide if left as they are.
Flores said dams have killed many major rivers, but the other tributaries died too because of agriculture and deforestation.
But she said that even with the construction of large dams, by allowing water to flow continuously, drying up of rivers that lead to its death can be avoided
Another major problem is the unchecked quarrying activities.
Long-term planning
“I think the only way to save them [rivers] is [through] long-term planning and a vision that doesn’t change whoever is in power. There should be a national or inter-regional mandate,” she said, noting that LGUs cannot make a dent in addressing the multifaceted problems besetting the county’s rivers.
“Biodiversity-wise, they [rivers] are known to be rich. But most are dying and dried because they were sacrificed for other purposes,” Flores said.
Most rivers, she said, are already polluted and yet they still remain a source of fish and other invertebrates.
“Some are eels, gobies, carps, tilapia, dalag, biya, hito, gourami-etc. Freshwater lobster, prawns and crabs are also abundant, plus shellfishes,” she added.
“The abundance of rivers is enough to feed those communities near them, only if they are protected and managed,” Flores said.
As they say, a healthy river is a wealthy river.
Image credits: Jonathan L. Mayuga