(Editor’s note: The campaign to clean rivers and waterways needs to be relentless as noted by the author.)
By Romeo V. Pefianco
IN the last 40 years government and civic organizations made several attempts to clean, dredge and bring life back to the Pasig River.
Bigger admission ticket
One such big drive was increasing admission tickets to movie houses in Metro Manila. To this date people/movie viewers who paid the INCREMENT don’t even know how much was collected over the years. The collection amounted to countless millions, but the river has remained filthier than ever.
Another announcement to clean Pasig River
This week the government announced, again, "the rehabilitation and cleanup" of this river from its source in Laguna de Bay through Rizal towns and well-known cities with a squatter population by the tens of thousands habitually dumping their waste, garbage and septic tanks into the Pasig. Factory waste alone has polluted a longer stretch of the famous waterway.
Forgetting sanitation rule
Cities like Pasig, Makati, Mandaluyong, and Manila have rules on hygiene and sanitation violated by factories and the "informal dwellers" on river banks and esteros for so long even town and city officials bend their will in favor of squatters who help candidates promote their "colonies."
Squatters as lessors
In Manila, creeks are clogged with hovels and shanties without septic tanks. Analysts refer to this way of living as a case of "direct seeding."
Near Malacañang in Quiapo squatters, like landowners, build dwellings without permits rising three to five stories high, which they lease to the homeless from their province. The real landowners need a folder of documents to be approved.
Habit that stays
There’s no such method as river desilting and cleanup without first rounding up the tens of thousands of informal dwellers who build permanent homes up to the edge of the river. The estero dwellers clog the natural waterways and contribute to widespread flooding in Metro Manila.
Some two or three years ago I saw two barges waiting to load silt at San Juan River. But upstream and downstream residents enjoyed dumping more waste into the river within sight of laborers and technicians trying their best to clean the river.
Campaign failing
Without a restored and clean river, esteros and other waterways near Sta. Ana, Quiapo and other districts "Buhayin ang Maynila" will NOT succeed.
Promising and ordering the cleanup of the Pasig has been viewed with indifference in the last 40 years. People who read or hear about the new pledge to bring back life to Pasig shrug their shoulders in disbelief.
Success of Mayor Lacson
Right after Mayor Arsenio H. Lacson occupied City Hall in January 1952, he announced to drive squatters away from Manila, especially those living on riverbanks, esteros, Intramuros, etc.
Lacson was both ruthless and relentless. For example, to rid the "Casbah" on Juan Luna St. (Binondo) of squatters, criminals, and their filth he ordered 10 firetrucks to flush them out like a flock of bats. In less than one day the "Casbah" ceased to be a den for criminal elements.
Lopsided elections
The mayor scolded them and announced he had no need of the captive squatter votes. The Pasig and creeks within the boundary of Manila eventually became squatter free.
Playing ball with the homeless was not Lacson’s idea of charity and cleanliness for his city. He won three elections lopsidedly and faced a fourth when he died of a heart attack.
Filthy sidewalks
Cities in Metro Manila today have dwellers and dumpsites on sidewalks. The big mystery is: Where do they hide or throw human waste? This can also create a metrowide epidemic.
For as long as informal dwellers are "friendly" to politicians there’s no fear of relocating them or telling them to stop polluting the air and waterways. They’re aware and proud of their usefulness again on election day in May 2007. (Comments are welcome at rvp@fastmail.ph.inter.net)
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