THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is getting another P1.56 billion in fresh funding this year for the rehabilitation of Manila Bay, Rep. Michael T. Defensor of Anakalusugan said in a statement issued last Sunday.
Defensor said the allocation for this year is higher than the 2020 budget for an “Operational Plan for the Manila Bay Coastal Management Strategy.”
The lawmaker said the operational plan is pursuant to the Supreme Court’s 13-year-old continuing mandamus directing the DENR and 12 other agencies to clean up the waters of Manila Bay.
The amount is 16-percent greater than the P1.35 billion budget that the DENR obtained last year for the development, updating and implementation of its operational plan, according to Defensor.
“If we look closely at the 2008 mandamus, the high court’s specific instruction is for the agencies to restore Manila Bay’s waters to Class B, or suitable and safe for public swimming, skin-diving and other forms of contact recreation,” he said.
Earlier, Deputy Speaker Jose “Lito” L. Atienza said the yearly allocation for Manila Bay will just go down the drain due to the failure of Manila Water Co. Inc. and Maynilad Water Services Inc. to capture and decontaminate the national capital’s wastewater.
In 2019, 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.
Defensor, who served as DENR head for less than 18 months between 2004 to 2006, said that based on the DENR’s old water classification table, the fecal coliform level of Class B coastal waters “should not exceed 200 most probable number (MPN) per 100 milliliters (ml).”
Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu has said that water samples taken last month from 21 monitoring stations around Manila Bay showed an average fecal coliform level of 4.87 million MPN/100ml, down markedly from the 7.16 million MPN/100 ml detected in 2020.
Cimatu also said the fecal coliform level in the waters near the so-called beach nourishment project had dropped from 2.2 million MPN/100ml to 523,000 MPN/100 ml, based on the average count from three stations.
An aquatic environment’s high fecal coliform level indicates severe contamination with human toilet waste.
It points to the heavy presence of bacteria or viruses that may cause diseases such as typhoid fever, hepatitis, gastroenteritis and dysentery in people who come into contact with the waters.