Money for nothing

"Every centavo of the project will go down the drain unless Manila Water and Maynilad put up sewer lines as ordered by Supreme Court."

It’s nice to hear the government, particularly the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, is finally taking the rehabilitation of Manila Bay seriously. For next year, the DENR has allotted P1.35 billion to rehabilitate the bay, so people like us could again enjoy the sight of the mighty sun slowly being swallowed by the expanse.

Records from the proposed 2020 national budget reveals that DENR’s Operational Plan for the Manila Bay Coastal Management Strategy will get P1.35 billion out of the proposed P4.1-trillion proposed budget.

The money will be spent to renew and preserve Manila Bay’s coastal and marine ecosystem.

However, every single centavo of that huge amount of money, could, in the words of Buhay Representative Lito Atienza, go down the drain unless Manila Water and Maynilad put up sewer lines as ordered by Supreme Court.

“Nothing has changed. Right now, the bulk of Metro Manila’s raw sewage, including those from households, still drain into the Pasig River and other waterways that all empty out into Manila Bay,” Atienza says.

Last month, the Supreme Court upheld a 2009 DENR order penalizing Manila Water and Maynilad, along with the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System, with a combined P1.84-billion fine for their failure to put up sewage lines, violating Section 8 of the Clean Water Act.

Until they fully comply with the Clean Water Act, the Supreme Court said Manila Water, Maynilad and the MWSS will have to continue to pay a P322,102 daily fine that escalates by 10 percent in two years, plus legal interest of six percent per annum.

The three erring parties were supposed to pay the initial fine within 15 days from receipt of the Supreme Court decision that was announced Aug. 6.

Incidentally, it was Atienza himself who issued the 2009 order when he was DENR head.

Atienza nonetheless assures DENR of his support especially in its effort to revitalize Manila Bay including additional funding. 

But Malacañang really has to crack the whip on the two water concessionaires that have been defying the Clean Water Act.  Otherwise, all our efforts to fully restore Manila Bay, which still functions like a vast septic tank, will be without real success,” Atienza says.

Rightfully said. P1.35 billion is such a huge amount of people’s money to just let go to waste.

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Critics of the government should not only focus on China’s incursion into our waters.

Not only have we failed to yet submit a proposal to the International Maritime Organization on the designation of our archipelagic sea lane passage, which is a requirement under the UNCLOS. We also have to enact a law requiring clearance or prior notification of foreign vessels passing through the waters within our baseline. 

In a media forum held at the Nanka Japanese Latin Restaurant in Quezon City last Friday, Professor Roland Simbulan said that while he strongly believes China is violating our sovereignty by deliberately intruding our waters, China is doing so to protect its trade lanes, which is also being used by the United Sates as a playground for its vaunted Seventh Fleet. In fact, Simbulan said the US did not sign the UNCLOS as it claims both Pacific and Atlantic oceans as its own.   

And the Philippines happens to host at least eight most important straits which serve an important transit route for international trade between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean with an amount of around 15,000 annual ship passage. Thus, China needs to assure its trade lanes will never be hampered, especially now that tensions between it and the US appears to be escalating.

It’s a good thing, PBA Rep. Jericho “Koko” Nograles bared that the enactment of a law governing our archipelagic sea lanes is one of the priority bills now pending in Congress. 

In the meantime, we should also train our “guns” on other countries, especially the United States, that are violating our sea lanes.