There’s a modern-day battle taking place in Manila Bay, our famed natural harbor, and Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga is leading the fight.
It’s an uphill battle as she goes against proponents of the different reclamation projects – big businesses – in her mandate to review the cumulative impact of these projects.
This is positive news for the environment and Manila Bay. Perhaps, the DENR should also order a halt to all ongoing construction while the review is ongoing.
As Oceana said, “The DENR cannot be reviewing all these projects without exercising precaution. It is clear that these projects have already started and resulted in an alarming degradation of the environment, destroying the mangroves, denying fisherfolk their fishing livelihood and sources of food and the destruction of seagrass and the seabed by dredging.”
Recently, the spotlight is on plastics king William Gatchalian’s 318-hectare Waterfront Reclamation Project after the US embassy raised concerns on the ongoing reclamation projects in Manila Bay. It was Bilyonaryo which first reported the story.
While the US embassy did not specify any project, it mentioned China Communications Construction Co., which is an affiliate of Gatchalian’s EPC contractor China First Highway Engineering Corp.
“We have expressed concerns about the potential negative long-term and irreversible impacts to the environment, the resilience to natural hazards of Manila and nearby areas, and to commerce. We are also concerned that the projects have ties to the China Communications Construction Co., which has been added to the US Department of Commerce’s Entity List for its role in helping the Chinese military construct and militarize artificial islands in the South China Sea. The company has also been cited by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for engaging in fraudulent business practices. We continue to support high quality, sustainable and transparent investments to benefit the Filipino people and will continue to engage with the appropriate authorities on this matter,” the US embassy said.
Actually, I heard that most of the reclamation project proponents tapped Chinese contractors. I hope we won’t be paying for the implications of this, one way or another, in the future.
As of this writing, the Chinese embassy in Manila has not responded to requests from reporters to comment on the US embassy’s statement.
Gatchalian: We are compliant
Sought for comment, Gatchalian said that with or without reclamation projects in Manila Bay, parts of Manila would still be submerged in flood, and so will other cities.
The solution is to fix the entire drainage system which, he said, is old and outdated.
He also said that the City of Manila and Waterfront Manila are compliant with all the requirements of the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA), including the payment of regulatory fees of about P800 million to the government.
There was also “no objection to the project” after it was given a Notice to Proceed by the PRA.
Not surprisingly, of course, Gatchalian touts the project’s benefits, including potential economic activities across business sectors and “around 100,000 employment opportunities, billions of taxes and the much-needed income to the country in general and to the City Government of Manila and its constituents in particular.”
He also said during our phone chat that reclamation has socio-economic benefits well recognized by the State as early as the time of then President Marcos Sr.
“This has been continued with the successful establishment of the CCP Complex, Mall of Asia (MOA) and the like,” he said.
Finally, he also noted that their Chinese contractor is a different entity from China Communications.
Even before the US embassy raised its concerns though, Secretary Loyzaga has already made it clear that her department would be reviewing all reclamation projects.
This is really a welcome development. Doesn’t it feel like all of a sudden, there’s more than a dozen “new cities” rising in Manila Bay which seemed to have started years ago while we were sleeping?
A thorough review would put all questions and concerns aside.
Should results of the review call for the government to scrap projects, then the Marcos administration must have the political will to do this.
Cumulative impact assessment
In a forum on Friday, Sec. Loyzaga cited Executive Order 74 which directs the DENR to conduct a cumulative impact assessment on all reclamation projects.
“What has happened here is that individual projects were somehow processed without taking into consideration the cumulative impact of all the projects together. This is actually critical for future use,” she said.
The DENR will form a team to review all ongoing reclamation activities, she said.
She added that the mandamus issued by the Supreme Court ordered 13 agencies, including the DENR, to ensure that Manila Bay is rehabilitated “to the point that people can actually swim in it.”
“What we were not able to do at this point is implement that order and also make sure that all of these other developments will take place because the permits were processed. There is ecological concern, socio concern, obviously regulatory concern because of the mandamus order and we do need to balance all of these now into a set of recommendations,” she said.
Bravo, Sec. Loyzaga!
May you have the strength to endure this uphill battle. May we all support this review because once reclamation happens, we can never reverse it.
While it’s true that past reclamation projects have been successful and useful, in this era of a burning planet, that may no longer be the case.
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Email: eyesgonzales@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.