It is tragic that it is only now that the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has realized that Laguna de Bay, the country’s biggest lake at 94,900 hectares, won’t be able to save Metro Manila from flooding.
After keeping its peace for years, the MMDA, through Chairman Romando Artes, has admitted that the lake must be dredged since its average depth now is only 2.5 meters, and the deepest portion is around Talim Island at 7 meters. Being shallow, Laguna de Bay cannot accommodate large boats, and neither can it be the source of potable water since it is heavily contaminated with mercury, lead, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals.
A total of 24 rivers and creeks drain into the lake, all of them bringing silt to the inland waterway that used to be as deep as 30 meters and hosted alligators and a variety of freshwater species, along with marine species trapped when Laguna de Bay formed millions of years ago. As the country’s biggest fishpond, Laguna de Bay now hosts only a handful of fish species as the omnivorous Nile tilapia consumed many of them to extinction. Sadly, the past administration failed to introduce the more sustainable herbivorous tilapia from South Africa.
Central to the problem of Artes is the refusal of the Aquino administration to pursue the Laguna Lake Rehabilitation Project (LLRP) proposed by Baggerwerken Decloedt En Zoon (BDC), a Belgian dredging company backed by Brussels and one of the biggest in the world, alleging that corruption tainted the proposed P18.6-billion project during the Arroyo regime.
Former Senate President Franklin Drilon claimed as much during the year when Iloilo had a several dredging projects funded by the national government. In a bizarre declaration, Sen. Loren Legarda claimed dredging does not reduce flooding but causes it instead. For his part, the late president said the project “merely transferred the silt from one part of the lake to another,” which was incorrect. Now, the government is contemplating on allowing Taguig Lake City Development Corp. to do the P609-billion dredging project over 10 years.
The unsolicited BDC project was reviewed by three justice secretaries and passed their muster while the Belgian government, along with King Albert, vouched for the integrity and capability of BDC to implement the project, but the Aquino government insisted not only to put LLRP on ice but to bury it for eternity. Borrowing the penchant of some Philippine companies to throw hurdles at rivals that win biddings for government contracts, a Belgian company, Jan de Nul, also questioned the BDC contract in newspaper ads. This is the same company that worked on a reclamation project adjacent to Mall of Asia and is currently reclaiming part of Navotas City, thereby blocking the natural waterways of Metro Manila and stealing the famed Manila Bay sunset in the process. Sofitel is shutting its hotel in the Cultural Center complex after the bay area has become a concrete jungle.
LLRP’s design called for putting up at least 24 silt traps in the rivers and creeks that drain into the lake, thus preventing sediment from accumulating in the waterway. The company said these silt traps will be monitored regularly and the silt collected will be transferred. BDC was the same company that dredged Pasig River, recovered at least one Japanese World War II tank in the process and dispatched millions of tons of silt. Despite this, the Arroyo administration killed the project, forcing BDC to sue before the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, D.C. in 2011. ICSID decided against the Aquino administration and found it liable for breach of contract, ordering it in February 2017 to pay P800 million in damages to the Belgian company.
Laguna de Bay needs not only rehabilitation, but good stewardship escapes the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the fishpond and fish cage owners in the lake who are invariably mayors, generals, and large commercial fishermen and even meat processors, along with the dental clinics and corporations that dump mercury, cadmium and other toxic substances into the hapless lake. One BDC executive wryly commented that “people should stop treating Laguna de Bay as a septic tank.” The lake can hardly be expected to generate potable water since global standards require lakes to be more than 2.8 meters deep before any harvesting can happen. Add to that the risk to people’s health when they consume fish from Laguna de Bay. The University of the Philippines (UP) had warned consumers not to eat contaminated fish from the lake several years ago. Tragically, Laguna de Bay fish cages supply up to 70% of the milkfish and tilapia eaten by Metro Manila residents.
