WB, Netherlands give $10-M aid for Laguna de Bay cleanup

MANILA, Philippines - The World Bank and the Netherlands have given the Philippines $10 million to help clean up Laguna de Bay, Malacañang announced yesterday.

World Bank Country Director Bert Hofman told The STAR that the funds, spread over three years, would finance industrial wastewater treatment, community trash collection and eco-tourism projects in the heavily silted lake and surrounding floodplain.

Of the $10 million, $5 million is a grant from The Hague while $5 million is a World Bank loan.

Hofman said it is the second phase of a program administered by the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA). He clarified that the program does not involve dredging of the lakebed.

Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the $10-million project had been approved by the National Economic and Development Authority.

“This is one of the measures undertaken to protect the Laguna lake,” he told Palace reporters.

The government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had contracted a Belgian company to dredge the 94,900-hectare lake, but Aquino administration officials said the deal had been “cancelled and rescinded.”

The dredging project was proposed to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources by Belgium’s Baggerwerken Decloedt En Zoon (BDC). The company is said to be eyeing reparation for the scrapping of the contract, but Palace officials are opposed to the idea.

In October last year, President Aquino announced that he “rejected (the dredging contract) in its present form, because it would be a futile attempt for the government to spend P18.7 billion only to transfer dredged materials to a site nearby,” or within the same lake area.

Some experts have also pointed out that dredging will not work for the lake, which overflowed and inundated many villages in the floodplain for many weeks in the wake of typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” in 2009.

In November last year, President Aquino ordered LLDA General Manager Rodrigo Cabrera to explain why he misinformed media that the dredging contract was still under review when it had already been cancelled.

“The President has instructed Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa to invite GM Cabrera to explain his statements,” Lacierda said, telling the press that Aquino’s position was unchanged, that “the LLDA project stays cancelled.”

“I spoke to President Aquino. It’s clear that his views on this deal have not changed. It has already been cancelled,” Lacierda said.

Cabrera reportedly told Laguna fisherfolk that “the project is not totally shelved, but he (Mr. Aquino) just wants to make some revisions to put in some more components.”

In a speech marking his first 100 days in office, the President had cited the Laguna lake dredging project as a classic example of wastage of government resources.

He wondered why silt dredged from the lake would only be transferred to the lake shore and not disposed elsewhere.