AT least P1.35 billion earmarked for Manila Bay’s rehabilitation could just go down the drain until private water concessionaires put up sewer lines as ordered by Supreme Court, Buhay Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza warned at the weekend.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is spending another P1.35 billion next year for the Manila Bay Rehabilitation Program, but the failure of Manila Water Co. Inc. and Maynilad Water Services Inc. to capture and decontaminate the national capital’s wastewater will make the effort and funding for naught, he said.
“Nothing has changed. Right now, the bulk of Metro Manila’s raw sewage, including those from households, still drain into the Pasig River and other waterways that all empty out into Manila Bay,” Atienza, former three-term mayor of Manila, said.
The DENR’s Operational Plan for the Manila Bay Coastal Management Strategy is getting another P1.35 billion in the proposed P4.1-trillion General Appropriations Act for 2020, to renew and preserve Manila Bay’s coastal and marine ecosystem, according to Atienza, a former DENR secretary.
“We will, of course. continue to support all new spending to revitalize Manila Bay. But Malacañang really has to crack the whip on the two water concessionaires that have been defying the Clean Water Act,” Atienza said.
“Otherwise, all our efforts to fully restore Manila Bay, which still functions like a vast septic tank, will be without real success,” Atienza said.
Last month, the Supreme Court upheld a 2009 DENR order penalizing Manila Water and Maynilad, along with the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), with fines—which have since ballooned, per the court’s computation, to P1.84 billion—for their failure to put up sewage lines, violating Section 8 of the Clean Water Act.
Atienza issued the 2009 order when he was DENR head.
Until they fully comply with the Clean Water Act, the Supreme Court said Manila Water, Maynilad and the MWSS will have to continue to pay a P322,102 daily fine that escalates by 10 percent in two years, plus legal interest of 6 percent per annum.
The three erring parties were supposed to pay the initial fine within 15 days from receipt of the Supreme Court decision announced August 6.