WHILE the government has suspended 22 reclamation projects in the Manila Bay amid the alleged questionable grant of permits by the Philippine Reclamation Authority, a P1.4 billion funding has been proposed in the 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) budget for the cleanup and rehabilitation of the harbor pursuant to a 15-year-old Supreme Court order.
Quezon City Rep. Marvin Rillo, vice chair of the House Committee on Metro Manila Development and a member of the Committee on Appropriations, said the DENR’s Operational Plan for the Manila Bay Coastal Management Strategy said the proposed P1.4 billion in 2024 is in addition to the P1.5 billion earmarked for the same purpose in this year’s national budget.
Rillo said the budget for the rehabilitation of Manila Bay also covers the relocation of around 233,000 informal settler families that reside along the bay’s 190-kilometer coastline and directly discharge their wastewater into the inlet.
“We are all for the complete environmental restoration of Manila Bay for the enjoyment of future generations of Filipinos,” said the lawmaker.
Rillo said the SC has a continuing mandamus order to the DENR and a dozen other agencies to restore the sea inlet’s waters to Class B, and make them suitable and safe for public swimming, skin diving and other forms of contact recreation.
Manila Bay is currently largely unsafe for public swimming due to severe contamination with human toilet waste and the heavy presence of disease-carrying bacteria and viruses.
The new budget for Manila Bay’s rehabilitation will be discussed during the House’s marathon deliberations on the proposed P5.768 trillion national budget for 2024.
President Marcos Jr. last week suspended reclamation projects in Manila Bay, affecting 22 projects that were approved under the Duterte administration.
The projects are now indefinitely suspended pending an ongoing impact assessment by the DENR and a review of the projects’ compliance with the requirements and conditions stated in their environmental permits.
The United States Embassy in the Philippines had recently raised concerns about the long-term and irreversible impact on the environment of the reclamation activities in Manila Bay.
It also raised concerns about the reported involvement of a Chinese construction firm, China Communications Construction Company (CCC), that had been blacklisted by the US for its involvement in the construction and militarizing of artificial islands put up by the Chinese in the South China Sea.
Environment Secretary Maria Antonio Yulo-Loyzaga has expressed grave concern that the reclamation projects could obstruct the DENR from fulfilling its duties under the High Court’s 2008 mandamus.
The DENR chief said the reclamation projects could upset the operations of existing and future sewage treatment plants (STPs) to be built around Manila Bay, which are meant to capture and clean Metro Manila’s wastewater before they drain into the bay.
