THE funds for the rehabilitation of Manila Bay will likely be sourced from the Road Board Users Tax, according to a Malacañang official.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesman Salvador S. Panelo added that the bay cleanup will likely cost “P46 billion…. And that the primary purpose is to get those funds [from the Road Board] to defray expenses for these items: Storm Usman victims, hospitals and cleanup of Manila Bay.”
He added Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu had expressed the hope that the rehabilitation would be completed “at the end of [President Duterte’s] term…. What is important to the President is that we will clean up this Manila Bay.” Due to the massive scale of the project, environment officials, however, have said the rehab could take longer. (See, “Saving Manila Bay,” in the BusinessMirror, January 5, 2019.)
Panelo added that the rehabilitation of Boracay Island will be the template followed in the cleanup of Manila Bay in that “the policy of the government is if you violate certain regulations—then you have to pay for that. Whatever we did in Boracay, [i.e. closing resorts with environmental violations], we will do for all.”
The bay’s rehabilitation, he stressed, will start with the cleanup of esteros and rivers, “because that’s the source of the pollution. Manila Bay is just where the garbage goes to. So they will clean at the source.” He added, the President will likely sign an executive order directing the cleanup of Manila Bay.
The cost on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’s (DENR) end for the cleanup is estimated to reach P1.75 billion over a period of three years, or from 2019 to 2021, according to the agency’s presentation during the Cabinet meeting in Malacañang on Monday. Major problems identified as causing the bay’s pollution include liquid waste, solid waste, informal settlers, and soil erosion and siltation.
Part of its “quick-fix” strategy to rehabilitate the bay is the deployment of environmental infrastructure, such as the deployment of a silt curtain with sewerage treatment plant (STP), which will cost some P56 million for a three-year period, a temporary sewerage system for informal settlers areas (P36 million), and aquifer recharging (P30 million).
The silt curtain with STP, which will be established at the mouth of outfalls, costs about P18 million per unit, with the STP able to treat some 200,000 liters a day of sewage. These will be deployed at the Manila Yacht Club, the Libertad Channel (near the Seaside Dampa Market), and the Navotas Fishport.
The sewerage system for informal settlers will cost P12 million a unit, and cover 400 households. The STP will be able to treat some 150,000 liters a day.
The aquifer recharge “involves the construction of deep wells to return water to the deeper confined aquifers,” and will cost P12 million per unit.
The DENR is just one of 13 government agencies directed by the Supreme Court in its mandamus issued on December 18, 2008, to “clean up, rehabilitate and preserve Manila Bay and restore and maintain its water to SB level (class B) sea waters per water classification under DENR Administrative Order 34 (1990) to make them fit for swimming, skin-diving, and other forms of contact recreation.”
Other agencies included in the mandamus are the Departments of the Interior and Local Government, Education, Health, Agriculture, Public Works and Highways, Budget and Management, as well as the Philippine Coast Guard, Philippine National Police Maritime Group, Philippine Ports Authority, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, and Local Water Utilities Administration.
The Supreme Court decision arose from the 1999 complaint filed by Concerned Residents of Manila Bay at the Regional Trial Court in Imus, Cavite, against government agencies cited above to push the cleanup of Manila Bay. The RTC, and subsequently, the Court of Appeals, sided with the petitioners, despite appeals made by the government agencies, until the case reached the SC. Said government agencies were supposed to submit quarterly progress reports of their cleanup activities.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes