The Philippines Is the World's Biggest Contributor to Plastic Pollution

The Philippines is a land of deception. The Department of Tourism tells the world "It's More Fun in the Philippines"and shows enticing pictures of impossibly beautiful and pristine places. But those places are not representative of the Philippines over all. They are anomalies. The sad fact is that so much of this nation is ugly and polluted. The air, the waterways, and the land are all covered in garbage of various kinds. Now the Rotterdam-based Ocean Clean Up has laid bare the truth for all the world to see.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/06/10/news/national/pasig-river-worlds-top-plastic-polluter/1802635

The Pasig River as well as 18 other rivers in the Philippines were identified as among the top 50 polluting rivers in the world, a study released by the Rotterdam-based Ocean Cleanup said.

Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit engineering environmental organization based in the Netherlands that develops technology to extract plastic pollution from the oceans and intercept it in rivers before it can reach the ocean. It also conducts scientific research into oceanic plastic pollution.

The study found that a quarter of the rivers that were found to be responsible for 80 percent of ocean plastic pollution are found in the Philippines.

The study found the Philippines as the biggest contributor to plastic pollution. Of the 1,656 rivers monitored worldwide, 466 were in the Philippines. Together, the rivers dumped more than 356,371 metric tons of plastic waste annually.

The 27-kilometer Pasig River, which runs through Metro Manila, accounts for 63,000 tons of plastic entering oceans from rivers per year.

The study also said that coastal countries like the Philippines have a relatively high probability of plastic entering the ocean due to various factors, including short distances from land-based sources to rivers and much shorter distances to oceans.

Plastic also flows more easily into rivers from paved urban areas than it does in rivers from forests and travels farther in rainy climates than dry ones.

The researchers also considered the proximity of landfills and dumpsites to riverbanks, finding out that those within 10 kilometers of rivers are likely to spill into them.

The Ocean Cleanup study was released as San Miguel Corp. (SMC), in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), other national government agencies, and Metro Manila mayors, launched its ambitious, five-year plan to clean up and rehabilitate the Pasig River.

The project is set to become the largest river rehabilitation project in the country, with SMC President Ramon Ang announcing that the company's budget for the undertaking is being doubled to P2 billion.

"There have been many cleanup efforts in the past, and government has successfully implemented a number of programs these past few years," Ang said. "But decades of pollution and compounding problems that have rendered the river biologically dead since the 1990s are too significant and complex to overcome - even for the best-intentioned advocates and organizations."

It is rather astonishing that 466 rivers, 25% of those surveyed, on this list are all in the Philippines. You could call it the Philippines' dirty little secret except it's not so secret anymore. It is interesting that the San Miguel Corporation's five-year plan to clean up the Pasig River is mentioned in this article. Why is a private company taking on this task? Becasue Duterte abolished the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, transferring it's powers to the DENR, the Manila Bay Task Force, the DHSUD, the MMDA, and the DPWH. Do you see the problem? Instead of one agency overseeing everything the task was divided up over several agencies who have other jobs to complete than cleaning the Pasig River. Duterte did this because he declared the river uncleanable.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1182766/duterte-to-congress-abolish-pasig-river-rehab-agency

“If Congress is listening, abolish that [PRRC]. There is nothing to clean in the Pasig River. It’s already clean. That’s (already) the state of the art of Pasig,” Duterte said Monday during the oath-taking of newly appointed government officials at Malacañang.

The President lamented that the government is just wasting time and resources with the PRRC which he said “cannot do anything” to revive Pasig River.

“Unless we require every building not only along the river but everybody who has a waste to dump in a sewage or sewerage, nothing will happen. You’re wasting time. You’re paying people for nothing. They cannot do anything,” he said.

This was another one of Duterte's many rash and misinformed decisions. If the river is uncleanable then why would he divide the task to clean it among several agencies? The fact is the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission was formed in 1999 and worked for two decades to clean the river. In 2018 their labor was recognized.

https://interaksyon.philstar.com/trends-spotlights/2018/10/22/136383/award-winning-rehab-of-biologically-dead-pasig-river-how-it-happened/

It took years of cleanup and follow through not often seen in government projects.

On October 16, Australia-based International RiverFoundation recognized the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission’s efforts to restore the notoriously polluted Pasig River, which runs across the national capital Metro Manila.

The foundation rewards “exceptional efforts in the protection, restoration and sustainable management of the world’s rivers.”

The inaugural Asia RiverPrize for the Pasig River beat the Asian Development Bank and Chinese government’s Yangtze River initiatives.

For almost two decades across administrations, the agency launched “quality projects, programs, activities and advocacies in easement recovery, riverbank development, waste and water quality management, and public awareness,” according to a brief released by the RiverFoundation.

The work is far from over, but the PRRC and its partners believe a complete rehabilitation can be achieved, estero by estero.

The commission projects 14 more years for the Pasig River to be alive again. Its 2017 master plan aims to make the river capable of sustaining biodiverse ecosystems by 2032. It should also become a source of livelihood and recreation.

After 20 years of hard work the PRRC believed they could clean up the river, estero by estero.  That means cleaning the river up one area at a time. They also believed this could be done by 2032. Too bad they had no idea that Duterte destroy their work by shutting them down. 

The fact that the PRRC won an award for their hard work in cleaning up the river shows that Presidential Spokesman Roque is a lair.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1143250

Malacañang is saddened that Pasig River has been named as the world’s most polluting river when it comes to plastic waste.

“Nakakalungkot po iyan (That is saddening). That’s not something that we should be proud of,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a virtual presser on Thursday when sought for reaction. “Dati nga po, meron pa tayong commission just on Pasig River pero wala ring nangyari (There was a commission just on Pasig River before but nothing happened).”

"There was a commission just on Pasig River before but nothing happened." What an outrageous lie. I just showed you that after 20 years the commission's work was recognized. They had a plan and were cleaning up the river piecemeal. Now Roque blusters out "nothing happened." What a profoundly ignorant buffoon he is. And not just Roque. Duterte, the DENR, all of them are deceptive buffoons who think the appearance of cleanliness equals cleanliness.  That is why they are dumping dolomite all over the shores of Manila Bay.

The public has been fooled into thinking that Duterte cares about cleaning up the waterways in Manila because the DENR spent millions to dump crushed dolomite on the shore of Manila Bay. Meanwhile the one body that actually was accomplishing real change, the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, was disbanded. It's simply more lies and deceit form the government with the people being the victims. It is because of the deceit and laxity of this administration and past administrations, as well as the nonchalant attitude of the people, that the Philippines has the infamous distinction of being the world's biggest contributor to plastic pollution.