MANILA, Philippines — Social scientists will join the team tasked with evaluating the impacts of reclamation activities in Manila Bay to provide a more holistic analysis, the country’s environment chief said Thursday.
Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said that all 22 reclamation projects in Manila Bay—an important fishing ground and hub of economic activities—are suspended pending a government review of their environmental and social impacts.
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According to Loyzaga, physical scientists such as oceanographers, geologists and climate scientists as well as social scientists will join the team that will assess the cumulative effects of reclamation activities. The team of scientists will be organized this month.
“I’ve been an advocate of transdisciplinary work—not interdisciplinary, not multidisciplinary… When you say transdisciplinary work, we learn from communities, from experts in practice. We don’t just learn from scientists who are professors,” Loyzaga said in a Palace briefing.
In a letter sent to the DENR early this week, organizations under People’s Network for the Integrity of Coastal Habitats and Ecosystems stressed that social science researchers must also take part in the impact assessment process as there are several issues that fall outside the strictly biophysical.
These include loss of livelihood, militarization of communities, impacts of marginalized sectors such as women, and effects on physical and mental health.
In a separate briefing Tuesday, Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment national coordinator Jon Bonifacio said that civil society groups and representatives of affected communities must be included in the process.
“It would be good to involve civil society organizations in the process so the assessment of impacts can be really independent and will have depth,” he said partly in Filipino.
Environmental groups also called on the government to study the impacts of coastal infrastructure projects such as the proposed Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge.
For fishers’ group PAMALAKAYA, the government should hold companies behind reclamation projects accountable for the displacement of hundreds of fishing families and offer fair compensation to those who have lost their means of living.
The announcement of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on the suspension of reclamation activities came a few days after the United States Embassy expressed concern about a reclamation project linked to China Communications Construction Company, a firm blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce.
For years, scientists and environmental advocates have stressed that Manila Bay is unsuitable for reclamation and coastal development due to the risks posed by floods, intensified typhoon-induced storm surges, and liquefaction during earthquakes.