Note: This photo-essay appeared in slightly different version in the 11-17 Jul 2014 issue of FilAm Star, "the newspaper for Filipinos in mainstream America," published weekly in San Francisco CA. This blogger/author is the Special News/Photo Correspondent of said paper in the Philippines.
The thought that this river should be brought to life
again has not left us after enjoying the ferry boat ride on the Pasig from
Pinagbuhatan, Pasig City to Plaza Mexico in Intramuros on two fine sunny days
in early June (FilAm Star issue 276).
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| Estero de Vakencia: then and now. Photo from Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission. |
We’ve read about the core program of the Pasig River
Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC) chaired by Ms. Regina Paz. L. Lopez, the main
thrust being the restoration of the 47 tributaries of the Pasig comprising
esteros, creeks and other waterways.
These tributaries are distributed in nine (9) clusters in
“The Strategic Development Framework for Tributaries (2014-2016)” under the Pasig
River Rehabilitation Master Plan: Cluster
I (8 Manila esteros); Cluster II (7 Manila esteros, which includes Aviles,
Sampaloc, San Miguel and Valencia); Cluster III (8 Manila esteros including
Paco and Santibanez); Cluster IV (5 creeks in Mandaluyong and Makati); Cluster
V (5 creeks and in Pateros and Taguig); Cluster VI (4 tributaries in Pasig);
Cluster VII (3 creeks in Mandaluyong and San Juan; and Cluster VIII (4 creeks
in Quezon City) and Cluster IX (3 creeks in Quezon City).
The named esteros in the Manila clusters have already
been totally or partially completed, and these were what we wanted to see. We’ve
had enough of seeing clogged esteros or creeks in going around Santa Cruz,
Quiapo or Binondo.
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| The Estero de San Miguel boardwalk. |
This portion of the estero was generally clean and
garbage-free, and we noted the floating islands of vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides) that spell the
slogan “Clean Water Soon.” These grasses are phytoremediators; and when planted
close together, they can filter out sediments and decontaminate heavy metals. Viviter
is used worldwide for slope protection and soil erosion control.
At the end of the board walk, a block from Arlegui, is an
antique-looking stone pedestrian bridge to the mini-park behind Centro Escolar.
The view from here is a row of houses all painted green, which we thought to
reflect the spirit of environmental protection.
Jericho Von Miranda, PRRC media and communications head, was
our amiable guide during our second journey to another sector of Estero de San
Miguel. This time, our pathway was the
easement between the tributary and the residential houses. Easements had been
transformed into linear parks bordered by green plants and other ornamentals. Through
PRRC’s ecological training activities, homeowners became River Warriors who are
responsible for making the estero and the linear park ecologically sound.
The rehabilitated Estero de San Miguel was inaugurated on
04 June 2014. Around Php52-Million was spent for dredging, installation of the
floating boardwalk, development of linear parks, river bank improvement, slope
protection and phytoremediation.
The 2-km long Estero San Miguel has yet to be completely
rehabilitated. We noted, for example, that there are still houses of informal
settler families (ISFs) built along or over the waterway. Miranda informed that their relocation is a
major component of the PRRC master plan.
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Top photos (left to right): Esteros de Sampaloc & Aviles.
Bottom (l to r): Linear parks along San Miguel & Paco esteros. |
Estero de Aviles. Our walk on the linear park was about
half-kilometer, the length of the waterway itself, and almost at the end is the
barangay hall. Where this hall now
stands, according to Miranda, were the houses of ISFs who amicably accepted to move
to relocation sites outside Manila.
The rehabilitated Estero de Aviles was inaugurated on 07
July 2013. About Php6.2-Million went
into dredging works, linear park development, and the construction of the
barangay hall and the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
.
Estero de
Paco. This estero is more than two kilometers
long. During the walk, we chanced upon
river warriors cleaning up areas that were flooded the night before because of
the heavy rains.
The rehabilitated waterway was inaugurated on 11 January
2012, the first to be completed and thus serves as template in the
rehabilitation of other tributaries.
Php20-Million went to the cleaning and rehab of the estero and of the
century old Paco Market.
Tarpaulin posters of the old estero heavily clogged with
garbage provide a very strong contrast
to what we saw: clean waterway with active island reactors-aerators surrounded
by lush green plants and river warriors on their rafts busy in their cleaning
tasks. The three island reactors worth
Php5-Million generate oxygen to help restore aquatic life in the waterway.
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| River Warriors maintaining cleanliness of the esteros of Paco (top & bottom left photos) and Santibanez (bottom right). |
Estero de Sampaloc
and Estero de Valencia. Our
sight-seeing was confined to Estero de Sampaloc via the well-kept linear park
along the kilometer-long tributary. We skipped the shorter Estero de Valencia
for another time. Both rehabilitated
esteros were the latest to be inaugurated on 11 June 2014.
The rehabilitation
involved not only riverbed dredging, desilting works, and riverbank development
but also relocation of some 400 ISFs in Bulacan. We noted a serious commitment among the
homeowners to keep their linear park “yards” clean by proper management of
their household wastes (“Tapat Ko, Linis Ko”).
Estero de
Santibanez. This short tributary (about 400 m long) was the last in our
guided tour. It lies close to the Malacañang
Park.
We found this waterway a refreshing sight. The water seemed fresher than those of other
esteros, concrete planters were built to wall the linear park from the estero, and
there were three boats that the river warriors use for cleaning
operations. These boats are also used
for livelihood: for a fee, visitors may
have some fun boating around the waterway.
The rehabilitated estero was inaugurated in November 2013.
Php13.69-Million was used for infrastructure development. The estero was dredged, the three-meter
easement was restored and developed into a linear park, bioremediation was
initiated, and community volunteers were trained as river warriors. The
easement restoration involved relocating ISFs.
It was a pleasure to note that homeowners there tended
“little gardens” on the concrete planters with signage boasting that “this
garden is cared for and loved by this family.”
A friendly ambiance pervades among the residents living near this
tributary.
The PRRC spearheaded the rehabilitation of the above six esteros. It had the ABS-CBN Foundation Kapit Bisig
Para sa Ilog Pasig (KBPIP), Local Inter-Agency Committee (LIAC) and the City of
Manila as major partners. PAGCOR, Metrobank Foundation and DPWH had
distinct participation in specific estero projects. The Department of the Interior and Local
Governments (DILG) was involved in the relocation of informal settler families.
PRRC began with 16 esteros in Manila and Quezon City, and
seven new project sites were added these year involving 140 barangays in
Manila: the esteros dela Reina, Magdalena, San Lazaro, de Vitas, Kabulusan,
Sunog Apog and Maypajo.
There are informal settler families to be relocated, and
PRRC intends to start the process by the third quarter of this year.
Relocations pave the way for recovering the three-meter
easements and developing them into linear parks, walkways and greenbelts. PRRC calls them Environmental Preservation
Areas (EPAs), which can serve as “buffer for public safety and river
protection.”
It will take some time, but the vision is of Pasig River becoming
alive once again with the complete rehabilitation of its 47 tributaries.
Postscript. Throwbacks.
Postscript. Throwbacks.
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| Plano de Manila y sus Arrabales [Plan of Manila & Suburbs] 1898 shows the
esteros & other Pasig River tributaries. [Source: Perry-Castaneda Library Map
Collection, University of Texas at Austin available from
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/manila_and_suburbs_1898.jpg]
|
‘There are many canals or esteros emptying into this [Pasig] river,” the American Express Company described in their guide to Manila and the Philippines (1933), and “[t]he strange and brilliantly colored “cascos” and the long and narrow “bancas” move slowly up and down the canals.’
National Artist Nick Joaquin delved farther into the
beginning of his “Manila, My Manila” (1999): “...this delta was not a solid hunk
of ground ... [but] a jumble of small islands between which ran the rivulets
that we call esteros.”
In his “Almanac for Manileños” (1979), Joaquin describes
Trozo as “a Little Tondo in the 1870s”, a marshland “traversed by three great
waterways: the Estero de San Lazaro, the Estero de la Magdalena, and the Estero
de Tutuban or Teneria ... deep running estuaries, navigable, and connecting
through the Pasig with the hill country north of Manila. When the mountains
there were still densely forested, loggers rolled the timber they felled down
the Pasig and into the esteros of Trozo, which became a lumber-yard area.”
It’s the national hero Dr. Jose Rizal who defined the
role of the estero, specifically the Estero de Binondo, during his time: “the Binondo creek ...plays, as do all rivers
in Manila, the multiple roles of bathing place, drainage and sewerage,
laundering area, fishing ground, means of transport and communication, and even
source of potable water, if the Chinese water hauler or peddler finds it
convenient (Noli me Tangere, Soledad Lacson-Locsin
translation).”
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