by John Hurt R. Allauigan | Editor-in-Chief, TalariaLink @hrtllgn_TRL
Marking the celebration of International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) on September 17, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has taken away more than 4, 500 sacks worth of garbage on the once hotly talked about Manila Bay walk Dolomite Beach.
This is not a good look to top up the Manila Bay dolomite beach issue as more than 4, 000 volunteers had taken out such a huge amount of garbage on what the government once described as a cure “to Filipinos’ mental health.”
In a DENR press release last September 30, they said that they are successful in bringing communities together and summoned the spirit of volunteerism among Filipinos to the tune of this year’s ICC theme “Fighting for Trash Free Seas-Pilipinas: Ending the Flow of Trash at the Source” and was only among the eight coastal clean-up drives that the department has spearheaded in Metro Manila.
In the said report, DENR Metropolitan Environmental Office (MEO) West officer-in-charge director Rodelina de Villa said that not only garbage consisting of plastic wastes was collected but also some natural marine wastes including dried water hyacinths and marine debris.
Additionally, the natural resources department central office has provided some 3, 000 bags for the effort through the Manila Bay Coordinating Office (MBCO) while the additional, 1, 500 more came from the DENR-National Capital Region, including DENR-MEO West.
Moreover, several local and national government agencies provided some additional trash bags and also lent a hand to the clean-up effort and participated in the once-a-year big-time PR clean-up stunt to clean the shores of Manila Bay. Agencies such as the Manila City government, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, Philippine Army, Philippine Air Force, Philippine National Police (PNP), PNP-Maritime Group, and Philippine Coast Guard also partake in the said event.
Not only that but also some from the private sector had joined the mix like the Maynilad Water Services Inc., Manila Water Company Inc., the Dragon Boat Federation of the Philippines, and thousands of private individuals to aid the common goal of beautifying the controversial Manila Bay.
On the other hand, De Villa had said that the Manila Bay walk clean-up effort is an excellent way of highlighting the collaboration of all sectors towards the welfare of the environment and that it “is necessary to address coastal litter through targeted beach cleanup activities.”
But she also later revealed that such initiatives cleaning the always littered and garbage-ridden Manila Bay walk is “challenging and daunting,” but with the help of persistent efforts from the community, the task can be considered a success.
“However big and daunting the task is, we can make a difference by bringing communities and people together to clean up beaches. Proof of this are organizations and individuals coming together at the Bay walk Dolomite Beach,” de Villa said.
Also in the said press release, it is important to highlight that DENR-MEO has continuously gathered heaps of trash in the area. This branch was assigned to the maintenance of the 500-meter beach walk and revealed that 147, 939 sacks of garbage had already been collected in numerous clean-up activities held between the dates of July 12 and September 17, highlighting that such band-aid temporary solutions were not enough to address the pile-up of trash in Manila Bay, that even the creation of an artificial man-made beach is not enough to hide the issue.
A stark irony to this year’s ICC theme; Manila Bay is not where the source of trash lies, and that the government was certainly not eager to admit that even such a huge clean-up drive and effort was not the solution to the problems of Manila Bay – a reality that’s been long ignored not only by them but also by many Filipinos.
Perhaps, the DENR and Filipinos should focus more on addressing the root cause of the problem and finding and enacting solutions for the long term. As noble as the cause was, we were still stuck on an endless cycle of continuous neglect of our environment, pouring resources and energy that inevitably, just like these piles of garbage, go to waste. And ridiculously, it sometimes comes at a hefty 439-million-peso price tag.
The actual cost of beauty
During the height of the pandemic, then-DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu made the ‘Manila Bay beach’ reality with the proposal of a Manila Bay makeover way back in 2019 in hopes of saving the bay from decades of festering waste pollution on the behest of the Supreme Court.
However, it did not go as smoothly as planned and critics slammed it for using “sand” that were actually crushed rocks (dolomite; calcium magnesium carbonate) sourced from the mountains of Cebu – talk about a problematic solution; saving the environment by harming the other environment.
In a radio interview, then-Environment Undersecretary Benny Antiporda revealed that part of the project, the sourcing of “sands” is illegal under the Republic Act No. 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, and immediately shifted the blame by pointing out that it was another project handled by the Department of Public Works and Highways.
Initially, in estimates from DPWH and DENR, the dolomite “beach nourishment” project costs between P349 million to P379 million, a figure that could be better allocated as we brave through the onslaught of the ongoing pandemic in 2020 when the project started.
Moreover, critics did not just find the sourcing of the sand a problem but could also be equally destructive to the bay itself, an area that it is supposed to beautify and protect.
Pamalakaya fisherfolks pointed out that the resulting coastal erosion of sands being washed away could trigger an ecological disaster that harms surrounding ecosystems and ultimately, a loss of livelihood in nearby areas due to the dwindling population of fishes in the bay, calling the project “a sham and absurd.”
“The DENR doesn’t have any concrete plan to restore the bay, it resorts to … external beautification, which is actually a sham and artificial, instead of genuine rehabilitation,” said Pamalakaya president Fernando Hicap adding that planting mangroves and seagrass on the area is a more cost-effective and permanent long-term solution than dumping synthetic sands that “would not do anything but instead be washed away by storm surges and rising tides” as echoed by Greenpeace Philippine campaigner, Sonny Batungbacal.
“Cure to Filipinos’ mental health issue”
During the heydays of the Covid-19 pandemic, aside from persisting socio-economic issues, was the toll of lockdowns and lack of social interaction to the majority of Filipinos’ mental health. Putting the country on the brink of a mental health crisis.
So, it was no coincidence that our government opened a newly built social space for everyone to enjoy during easing pandemic rules and called it a “benefit to Filipino’s mental health". But most netizens, including its harshest critics, were having none of it.
This started a series of poking fun and memes calling out the government’s utter “stupidity” for allotting its resources to a beach walk that’s bound to be “blown away” and be blown away it did. Numerous typhoons and storms have passed, and the Manila Bay walk Dolomite Beach has proven that this artificial beach is not made, or at least, planned and engineered to stand the test of Manila Bay waves.
This initiated a series of “refilling” projects to dump new batches of dolomite sand, and over time these add up to the already mind-blowing price tag of the project. With each batch expected to cost around 30 to 50 million pesos, it has already ballooned to almost half a billion pesos.
But the ever-persistent Philippine government is standing up to its controversial pet project and will go far and wide just to justify it.
Suddenly, it seems to be a cure for our mental health after all. Giving us some laughs on how mismanaged our government really is and how incompetent officials ran it ready to throw away millions, or even billions, of taxpayer’s money for solutions that would not benefit most of us. The fact that it still needs lots of clean-up drives from July to September is a testament of its own to how this “solution” is not solving the problem Manila Bay had in decades. We will just keep cleaning this said “beach” and turn a blind eye to the root causes of the problem.
Lo, and behold, the Manila Bay walk dolomite beach.
References: Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “DENR: Manila Baywalk Dolomite Beach cleanup yields over 4,500 sacks of garbage.” Press Release, 30 September 2022.
Subingsubing, Krixia (September 4, 2020). "Critics see red in Manila Bay's 'white sand' makeover". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved October 07, 2022. https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/337793/critics-see-red-in-manila-bays-white-sand-makeover
Arroyo L., Mejico L., Diño N., and Vijar K. (September 8, 2020). “White sand for mental health? Netizens poke fun at Manila Bay project”. Rappler.com. Retrieved October 07, 2022. https://www.rappler.com/moveph/memes-manila-bay-project/
Keywords used in this article:
Manila Bay
Manila Bay ‘Dolomite Beach’
Manila Bay controversy
Coastal Clean-up drive
celebration of International Coastal Cleanup
International Coastal Cleanup
Manila Bay walk Dolomite Beach
dolomite beach issue
Filipinos’ mental health
mental health
DENR press release
DENR
Department of Environment and Natural Resources
coastal clean-up drives
garbage consisting of plastic waste
plastic waste
natural resources
DENR-National Capital Region
clean the shores of Manila Bay
Manila Bay walk clean-up effort
coastal litter
beach cleanup activities
artificial man-made beach
man-made beach
Comments