Senator Nancy Binay. Screen grab/Senate PRIB
MANILA, Philippines — The budget for beautifying the baywalk of Manila Bay and transforming it into a white sand beach might be better off used in cleaning its waters, which is the main goal of the bay’s rehabilitation, Senator Nancy Binay said Friday.
During the Senate deliberations on the 2021 budget of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Binay said the ultimate goal of the bay rehabilitation is to improve its water quality.
She cited the 2008 Supreme Court mandamus which directed 13 government agencies “to clean up, rehabilitate and preserve Manila Bay, and restore and maintain its waters… to make them fit for swimming, skin-diving and other forms of contact recreation.”
“Ang mandamus naman talaga is to clean the water and not to create ‘yung beach. Dahil limitado na ‘yung pondo, baka ‘yung pondo na gagastusin for the baywalk, baka dapat mas nilagay na lang sa paglilinis ng tubig,” Binay said.
(The mandamus really is to clean the water and not to create the beach. Because funds are limited, the fund needed to be spent for the baywalk should have been used to clean the water.)
“Maganda ‘yung nakikita natin na white sand pero ‘yung babalikan natin, madumi pa rin ‘yung tubig,” she added.
(It is nice that we are seeing white sand but as we go back, water remains dirty.)
The DENR is seeking a P400-million budget in 2021 for what it called “beach nourishment” of the Manila Bay baywalk, which covers about 500 meters.
It would consist of dredging and de-silting of a portion of the bay.
DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu said the agency aims to make the baywalk a tourist center, as it was intended to be so in the past.
“Itong baywalk, we will make it really as a tourist center. We will clean up Manila Bay, and we will restore what was supposed to be the intention ng Roxas Boulevard na ngayon,” he said.