Manila, Philippines?The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to push through with the cleanup of Manila Bay starting with the demolition of illegal structures along connecting waterways and esteros in Metro Manila.

But the high court reminded the MMDA to observe the rules on summary evictions.
In its resolution, the high court said its decision ordering the bay?s cleanup is not a license to evict any individual without observing the law.

?While the MMDA?s zeal in improving the state of Manila?s drainage system and water bodies is laudable, this endeavor cannot go against the rights of those whose dwellings are in danger of being torn down,? the resolution read.

In December last year, the high court, through Associate Justice Presbitero J. Velasco, Jr., said concerned agencies should coordinate for the cleanup, restoration, and preservation of the water quality of the Manila Bay, even as it lamented the lack of concerned people and institutions to implement programs intended for its rehabilitation.

The high court recalled that Manila Bay was "a place with a proud historic past, once brimming with marine life and, for so many decades in the past, a spot for different contact recreation activities, but now a dirty and slowly dying expanse mainly because of the abject official indifference of people and institutions."

Petitioners Urban Poor Associates (UPA), Community Organizers Multiversity (COM), Community Organization of the Philippine Enterprise (COPE), Kabalikat sa Pagpapaunlad ng Baseco (Kabalikat), Ugnayang Lakas ng mga Apektadong Pamilya sa Baybaying Ilog Pasig (ULAP) and residents along Radial 10 (R-10) Boulevard in Tondo, Manila, told the high court that they were under continuous threat of relocation without prior notification by the MMDA.