Ayala helps Pasig River cause

MANILA, Philippines - The Ayala Group of Companies pledged to help rehabilitate the Pasig River during the recently concluded Sustainability Summit in Makati City.

The Ayala Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to signify its commitment to help in ABS-CBN Foundation’s groundbreaking projects Kapit Bisig para sa Ilog Pasig and Bayanijuan sa Calauan.

The MOU signatories were Ayala Corp. president Fernando Zobel, Habitat for Humanity Philippines chairman Francisco del Rosario, and ABS-CBN Foundation managing director Gina Lopez.

Zobel cited the rich history of the Pasig River and the need to preserve it. “This is a river that had incredible beauty in the past. If you look at the photographs of the Pasig River, you’ll see that the whole city wanted to face it. The most beautiful homes, the parks - the way Manila was planned was around the Pasig River,” he said.

“But little by little, with neglect over time, we’ve all turned our backs on the Pasig River and it has basically become a glorious garbage dump over the last few years. It’s a total embarrassment for our city. If we could find a way in solving this river, and cleaning it up, imagine what that could do for people’s confidence in terms of cleaning up so many other environmental problems in our country,” he added.

The Ayala Group has already laid out its plan for helping the Pasig River cause through two components - wastewater treatment and housing.

“Manila Water, as part of its mandate for the east concession area, is actually tasked to put wastewater treatment plants in that area,” explained Zobel. “And so they’ve already started working on that to make sure what goes into the river can be controlled and cleaned up.”

Wastewater treatment plants collect and treat wastewater before it goes back to the waterways.

“We would also like to get involved with the housing component... Working with Habitat (for Humanity) and with Gina (Lopez), we’ve been able to set aside a piece of land which is part of the Calauan area, and we’ve offered as the Ayala Group to plan it, to set up the site development and to build initial number of houses to celebrate our 175th anniversary,” said Zobel.

“We’ve committed P30 million as a group, and this is just the beginning of what I hope will be an ongoing process for that area. We also hope to build a school, basketball court, and some of the other amenities in that area,” he added.

Kapit Bisig Para sa Ilog Pasig is the river rehabilitation project of ABS-CBN Foundation in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources through the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission.

Bayanijuan sa Calauan is the official resettlement site of Kapit Bisig in Barangay Dayap, Calauan, Laguna, co-managed with the National Housing Authority. - Faizza Farinna Tanggol