Lito Atienza has done something that no other Environment and Natural Resources Secretary even thought was possible. Clearly, these fish pens and cages are bad for Manila Bay. Not only do they impede the sea lanes, they also destroy coral and deprive many of the other fish of oxygen in the rest of the sea. They also dirty the water just as much as raw sewage and other garbage does.

Fish pens and cages can be compared to fattening or feed lots for cattle and hogs which are kept in corrals where they can hardly move. The one difference is that there are personnel to clean up after the hogs and cows. In the sea where the fish are in the equivalent of feed lots, whatever excretions the fish drop remain in the water. Also, the excess fish food is eaten up by tinier micro-organism that compete with the fish for oxygen since all that food increases the number of micro-organisms in the area.

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The argument is made that the DENR Secretary should first clean up the Pasig River which flows out into the Bay, before dismantling the fish pens and cages, because at least these pens and cages provide some employment and bring food to the tables of Metro Manilans, Caviteños and others who live in the vicinity of Manila Bay and environs. But why should some have more rights to these waters which ought to be common property for all.

No one should own our seas and our beaches except all of us together in common as the people of this country. The idea that one can have any sort of title to these beaches or waters has to be rejected. No one should own the forests, rivers, lakes, mangrove swamps and other areas just as no one should own the sidewalks, parks and streets in our built-up areas.

Perhaps, one of our problems is the idea that if no one owns something, we can appropriate these for ourselves. That is the wrong way of looking at this. It is not that no one owns them; rather, we all own these things together and must therefore take care of them as though they were our very own so that this is not lost to us. If anyone appropriates these for themselves, the rest of us lose the use of these waters, beaches or trees.

The environment is among the things that we share with others. Does this mean that we, thus, do not have to care for her? I believe the lesson of global warming is that whatever happens to our environment – our waters, the air and our trees – is something that all of us together do to the environment.

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It is a good thing that Secretary Lito Atienza started with the dismantling of the fish pens and cages because these are the things in the Bay that have protectors, most of whom are rich and powerful persons. If Lito can actually finish the work of dismantling these structures, the rest should come easier.

What else must be done to clean up Manila Bay? Clearly, Metro Manilans and others have to learn not to throw garbage, raw sewage and other dirt into the Pasig River and even on our streets, because everything that is thrown on our streets goes into the drainage canals and into the sewer system. All of these end up in the Pasig.

Thus, there should be a campaign to treat the Pasig better than we have been doing.

Among the things that we need is for a water and sewage treatment plant to clean the waters of the Pasig before these enter Manila Bay. Still, the best water treatment plant cannot operate efficiently with all the things that clog the Pasig. I have seen dead dogs and other carcasses and even discarded furniture on the Pasig. Also, in some parts of the river, it is no longer water but muck – putrid and disgusting — that one sees and smells.

Thus, it is necessary that people must learn not to disrespect this river. We must be stopped from polluting it. Who will do the stopping? It will have to be ourselves who will stop us from continuing to pollute this great river.

Then, perhaps a water and sewage treatment plant can work.

The way I understand it, such a water treatment plant would cost a lot of money – in the vicinity of P100 billion! The money for this is being raised by our two Metro Manila water concessionaires from the fees for sewage that they are collecting from us in our monthly bills. We cannot wait for them to accumulate P100 billion before the work can begin in earnest.

So, why not have the banks lend the money to them which loan they will then liquidate by turning all of these sewage fee collections to the lending banks? They could do this by selling bonds which can then be picked up by banks and other institutions. Otherwise, we may have to wait a hundred years for the water and sewage treatment plant to be built. By that time, the cost would have escalated to several more hundred billions. And, worse, the Pasig River would have died long before the plant could have been commissioned.

If what Lito Atienza displayed was political will. that is also what the water concessionaires must have. The same is true for the rest of us who live in the environs of the Pasig and Manila Bay. If these waters will be cleaned up, no amount of orders written out and barked by any secretary will succeed. What needs doing is for all of us who live in Metro Manila to become aware of the necessity of cleaning up our acts individually and collectively.

The Marikina River, which flows into the Pasig is much cleaner now than it was before. I am told that one can already fish in it and catch real fish and not the janitor fishes that almost took over that part of the river system. As a young man starting out in the world just fifty years ago, I remember that the Pasig was still a clean river where one could actually swim and even fish, What has happened to it?

If we stop abusing it, perhaps it will also clean itself as it does after heavy rains and floods that throw out all of the Pasig’s sludge and muck into the Bay. The problem is that after it has disgorged all of its muck into the Bay, new garbage is again thrown into the river. If we do not learn, the Pasig will never ever become clean again!