Bulatlat News
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – Groups reiterated the call to end reclamation and dredging activities in Manila Bay in a gathering April 20 in the coastal areas of Navotas City where 1,000 fisherfolk families were reportedly affected by the demolition of mussel farms attributed to the proposed Navotas Bay Coastal Reclamation Project.
“In the face of relentless development aggression threatening Manila Bay’s communities and ecosystem, the People’s Earth Day gathering stands as a beacon of resistance,” Jonila Castro, Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment’s advocacy officer for reclamation and water said in a statement.
“However the Marcos Jr. administration and his cronies may want to call it, reclamation and dredging activities are still happening and negatively impacting coastal communities and ecosystems in different parts of the bay. Marcos Jr.’s verbal proclamation to suspend all reclamation activities in Manila Bay remains a broken promise,” Castro added.
The gathering was attended by fisherfolk groups, environmental groups and faith-based organizations where they formed a human chain along the Navotas bridge.
Kalikasan said that the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) announced last February that previously halted reclamation projects are now resuming operations, such as the 90-hectare Bacoor Reclamation and Development Project in Bacoor, Cavite, and the 15.62-hectare rehabilitation of the Navotas Fish Port Complex.
Castro lamented that the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration has allowed big corporations and foreign entities like the Netherlands’ Boskalis and Ramon Ang’s San Miguel Corporation to “ransack Manila Bay and all its remaining ecology.”
According to the Center for Environmental Concerns, reclamation and dredging operations “are leading threats to ecology and the lives of the Filipino people.”
The group described the term “reclamation” as misleading “since there is no land to reclaim as reclamation makes land in areas where there is water. “
“There are 187 approved and proposed reclamation projects nationwide according to the Philippine Reclamation Authority. This means that the situation nationwide mirrors that of Manila Bay, multiplied by a hundredfold,” the group said in a statement.
The reclamation also necessitates the clearing of mangrove forests and dumping of filling materials on seagrass beds, the impact to the environment of which is significant, according to CEC.
“Siltation also occurs. All these affect the life cycle of marine species such as fish which causes a decline in fisheries production,” the group added.
They also criticized the proposed amendments to the Philippine constitution that will provide more opportunities for local and foreign businesses to continue with reclamation and dredging projects in the country.
“What Manila Bay, Navotas Coastal Bay, along with all other water systems in the Philippines needs is pro-people rehabilitation not reclamation. Genuine development will only be achieved if fisherfolk are given support rather than harming their fishing grounds,” the group said. (RTS, RVO) 
