Changes to Manila Bay spell ecological, economic costs — DENR

MANILA, Philippines — Introducing changes to the structure of Manila Bay will have ecological consequences, according to the preliminary results from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). 

In a Senate hearing probing the recent floods caused by Super Typhoon Carina and the southwest monsoon, DENR Secretary Maria Yulo-Loyzaga said that the agency’s cumulative impact assessment is still underway but it has preliminary results. 

“The findings are, any physical change of the embayment that is included in this area will change also the way the water and the pollutants as well as the other elements that are chemically present and biologically present in the Bay, it will change the way these behave,” Loyzaga explained to senators.        

“In general po, reclamation projects will slow down the flow of water, and will change the circulation and retention of pollutants and organic materials that are already in the bay,” Loyzaga added. 

The quality of water in Manila Bay may also change due to the reclamation activities, the DENR chief said. 

However, Loyzaga did not mention if reclamation activities could worsen the flooding along areas in Manila Bay. 

According to Loyzaga, the DENR is running models on different scenarios for reclamation activities. One of the scenarios includes what would happen if all 22 reclamation activities were to push through. None of the results are favorable to reclamation activities.  

“Reclamation projects will slow down, slow down, the flow of water, and the change, so far in our mode runs, has so far been in the negative,” Loyzaga said. 

“With the model runs that we are undertaking, there will be an ecological cost and an economic cost to introducing anything in Manila Bay,” she added.

Loyzaga said that they are updating their model simulations to include scenarios of weather systems like Carina. 

Senators believed that reclamation activities were to blame for the worsened floods in the Manila Bay area. Some lawmakers said that the flood reached all the way up to their waist when they tried going to their building in Pasay City. 

According to Loyzaga, a total of 2,576 hectares of Manila Bay’s coast has been reclaimed within the National Capital Region alone.

To recall, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. suspended all 22 reclamation projects in Manila Bay in 2023. Most of these activities were approved during the time of former president Rodrigo Duterte. 

However, two reclamation projects were approved in Manila Bay months later, namely the Pasay Harbor City Reclamation Project and the Pasay Reclamation Project.