Carbon footprint & Manila's green past

It is fashionable today to talk about carbon footprints, environmental balance and resource management. Green architecture and planning are often touted as new and innovative and are being introduced in schools as a supposedly contemporary and progressive direction in education.

The truth is, we already had a curriculum that taught these things, albeit under older terms such as science and geography. Fifth and sixth-grade students before World War II were given a great introduction to these subjects, so we had a population then that was literate in the ways that nature supported human and economic development.

Geography and science subjects of the period introduced students to the concept of regions and provinces in those regions — emphasizing the importance of the natural systems within their physical (not political) boundaries as resources to be tapped for the growth of towns and cities.

I have a copy of Intermediate Geography from 1932 and in it students are shown that Manila, being the largest city in the country, was supported by its latifundia, the region surrounding it. The term originally referred to landed estates in Roman times or haciendas in colonial Spanish times given to agriculture to support cities like Rome or for export.

In the Philippine setting, particularly Manila in the American and Commonwealth periods, it was the province of Rizal that provided for most of the needs of Manila with Cavite, Batangas, Laguna and Bulacan filling up other requirements.

Rizal at the time included most of the towns and cities now under the umbrella of Metropolitan Manila. San Juan, Malabon, Navotas, Pasig, Pateros, Tondo, Parañaque, Marikina and Novaliches were districts or towns in Rizal that were mainly agricultural or produced timber, stone for building, or handicrafts. The book expounds:

 “Rizal province surrounds Manila; most of its products are intended for use in that city…The eastern part of the province lies in the Sierra Madre. These mountains extend close to the shores of Laguna de Bay, leaving a narrow coastal plain. Between Manila Bay and these mountains are highlands with rolling hills overlooking Laguna de Bay…The valley of the Mariquina River is small, but it is the most fertile part of Rizal province. Manila gets its water from the upper part of the river and from a large artificial…reservoir, which has been built at Novaliches, to store water.

 “The people of Manila buy all their fresh food from neighboring provinces. The province of Rizal sends fruits, vegetables and eggs, as well as betel leaves and areca nuts…in some places fields of zacate are grown…cut, made into bundles and sent to Manila, where it is sold as feed for horses and carabaos. Rice, sugar, tobacco and corn are also produced, and some are exported.”

These excerpts show that Manila and its immediate surrounding area, which at the time had grown to 400,000 in population, did not have to go far (and expend additional carbon) to transport their essentials.

The book continues:

 “The region is the most important one in the Philippines for ducks. They are raised in corrals on the rivers…and are sent to Manila in large quantities. At Pateros in Rizal eggs are hatched artificially in heated rice husks.”

The ducks were the main viands in Chinese dishes as most eateries in central Manila were — and still are — Chinese.

Building materials for the city did not have to come from the US, Europe or China. The book cites local sources: “Bamboo (used for temporary structures and scaffolding) is floated from the towns on the lake down to the Pasig to Manila. Rattan and firewood from the forests are also exported. The lumber of Rizal is cut and sawed by hand, but so much has been cut that timber is found only in the high mountains.” This forebodes our dire situation today where the country has lost over 80 percent of its forest cover.

More on construction materials: “In a large city like Manila there is use for great quantities of materials for constructing buildings and streets. Rizal furnishes some of these, for both clay and stone are found there in abundance. There are quarries from which stone is obtained and factories in which lime, brick, pottery, and cement are manufactured.”

The Philippines, in fact, had a robust brick-making industry, which eventually died due to pressures to use concrete and imported material. We are today too dependent on concrete hollow blocks when our neighbors in Southeast Asia all use local brick for partitions and infill. Brick has a low carbon footprint because it uses local materials and is a low-tech product that can be produced in great quantities.

The book goes on to describe the sourcing and processing of both brown and white sugar. There is also a long description of fish “growing” in Laguna de Bay, and the esteros and ponds of Malabon and Navotas. Crab and oysters were also in great abundance in the esteros! A byproduct of the shells of these were also processed into lime for construction.

Tondo is noted in the book as the prime landing place for fisher folk (then called fishermen). “Most of the small fish were sold to Chinese. Near the beach in Tondo, the Chinese have more than a block of establishments where they preserve small fish by several methods of sun-drying, salting, and smoking.”

The penultimate section of the book chapter describes the burgeoning handicraft industry that produced embroidery for the local and world market based in Parañaque. Marikina (then spelled Mariquina) is cited as the slipper and shoe capital. Malabon is mentioned for its jusi-sinamay, and the towns along Laguna de Bay for hats and mats were made from pandan called sabutan.

The excerpt ends with a description of the “excellent” facilities for transportation in Rizal. The Pasig was the main avenue of transport using “small steamers and boats.” The rest of the produce of these vast latifundia of Manila was transported to the city using the then extensive and efficient freight railroad system that was also connected to the pier in South Harbor.

Manila, before the war, was clearly a green city with a carbon footprint of minuscule size compared to today’s metropolis. Transport of people and goods were by trains and tranvias covering the whole city and connecting it past Los Baños to the south, Pangasinan to the north, and Antipolo to the east. It was a walkable city blessed with tree-lined, sidewalk-edged streets, verdant parks and vibrant public plazas. Growth was constant but fairly regulated according to a comprehensive master plan based on the 1905 Burnham scheme. Sprawl had not yet reared its ugly head and population growth was contained.

Today, Manila’s carbon footprint is horrendously large. Rizal and the surrounding provinces have lost most of their productive agricultural land to residential sprawl. Manila has grown out of proportion to its natural latifundia and can only survive by relying on imports of produce from the rest of the country, and now, mainly China.

We have not learned how to manage the growth of the city through design or policy. We do not balance urban development within a regional development context beyond political machinations.

Manila is 11 million people and counting, and the country will hit 100 million within the next decade. Time is running out, together with our natural resources, space and sanity. We must develop a new way of growing cities other than Manila in a regional physiographic context or live in a future where our children’s children will have no space even to leave their own footprints.

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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.