Pasig River expressway opposed

MANILA, Philippines — Concerned citizens, taxpayers and organizations appealed on Tuesday to the government to stop the proposed Pasig River Expressway (PAREx) project and to withdraw the approval of the supplemental toll agreement with its proponent “until all economic, social, environmental and heritage issues have been resolved.”

In their petition made public on Tuesday, the groups expressed their strong opposition to the proposed 19.37-kilometer elevated expressway that will traverse the Pasig River, which they said could be the river’s “death sentence.”

On Sept. 21, the Toll Regulatory Board and San Miguel Corp. signed the supplemental toll operations agreement for PAREx.

But the 76 civil society organizations that opposed the agreement noted that the “harm from PAREx will far outweigh any projected benefits” of the proponents, such as solving Metro Manila traffic.

Based on their conservative estimate, the P95-billion toll project will inflict a total of P164 billion in economic, health and social costs.

The figure, according to them, includes P97 billion in economic costs due to reduced property prices around the area, and P67 billion due to reduced life expectancy from noise, air and river pollution around the PAREx.

“This conservative estimate does not even include heritage, environmental, ecological and indirect health or COVID-19-related impacts of PAREx. It also does not include the future impact to taxpayers of the cost of highway removal.

The groups said that PAREx, a toll project that would connect Radial Road-10 in Manila City to C-6 road in Taguig, could also bring irreversible environmental impacts.