MARILAO, Bulacan—Newly elected local officials in the town placed on top of their priorities and projects the cleaning of their respective rivers which had been polluted with garbage and other heavy pollutants for decades.
Newly elected Marilao Mayor Atty. Jem Sy said that Marilao river clean-up is one of her many priority projects. She said she will strongly lead efforts to help revive the town’s river and convert it into a clean body of water.
Gov. Daniel Fernando wants a major river clean-up in all Bulacan’s rivers particularly those that stinks with garbage saying the worse conditions of the waters is shameful for the province.
The newly elected mayor welcomed the river clean-up campaign of the governor but she said, a call from the governor to do it is not necessary as she is on top of her initiative to help rehabilitate Marilao river.
“I havent heard about Gov Daniel’s call. But cleaning the river is one of my priority projects also. So definitely I will lead a river clean up, with or without his call,” she told NEWSCORE in a text message reply over the weekend.
Fourth District Rep. Linabelle Ruth Villarica told NEWSCORE in an interview in Baguio CIty on Sunday that they have long been and continuously addressing the garbage and dirty river concern of Meycauaayan through continuous river excavattions to desilt the river and through garbage and waste trap facilities.
She said, Meycauayan is a catch basin of water and garbage grom higher areas and could not solve the problem alone. “We cannot do it alone. The call, works and inititive of the governor is also as important as ours,” she said.
Fernando who expressed frustration last week after he have seen many rivers in Bulacan that stink because of wastes has called on all the 20 towns and 4 cities in the province to stage rigid river clean-up projects and stop converting the body of waters into a huge “waste basket”.
According to the governor, the wastes in the rivers leave Bulacan in shame. He said, Bulacan has been a continued top recipient of various awards, yet, its rivers are in worse conditions because of the floating garbage. “During the campaign, me and Vice Gov. Alex Castro saw the biggest problem in our province and this is the wastes that swamp our rivers,” he said.
“Nakakahiya po ang ating mga kailugan. Nakakahiya, tanggap tayo ng tangap ng mga award, pero ang kailugan natin ay puro basura. Ipakita nating may kahulugan at kabuluhan ang ating mga award,” (Our rivers are shameful. It is shameful that we regularly receive awards, but our rivers stench with foul odors because of volume of trashes. We should prove that the awards we get have meanings and sense,” the third termer Bulacan governor said.
Fernando primarily tasks the Bulacan Provincial Envrionment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO), the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (PDRRMO), the Provincial Engineering Office (PEO) to lead the clean-up.
He also ask the participation of the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) and all the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office (MENRO) in Cities of Malolos, Baliwag, San Jose del Monte and Meycauayan in cleaning their town and city’s respective rivers.
The governor said each of the city and town’s respective waste management system should be strictly implemented to keep and maintain the rivers to be garbage-free.
“For one, Mwycauayan river is one of them,” the governor said.
The rivers of Meycauayan and Marilao were named in 2007 as two of the world’s 30 filthiest places on Earth by Blacksmith Institute, a New York based environmental group which monitors the most polluted places in the world.
Industries including long time tannery and jewelry in Meycauayan had bern identified as among the major pollutants of the rivers. Meyvauayan and Marilao are next to each other after Valenzuela City in Metro Manila.
Being world’s dirtiest places, the two rivers have also been declared as biologically dead, where there could be no habitation for edible aquaculture products.
Most sections in the rivers in next adjacent towns of Bocaue, Balagtas and Guiguinto however are garbage-free when visited by NEWSCORE on Friday.
Over the recent years, local officials including national government agencies have conducted projects to clean and rehabilitate the two rivers. However, during recent years, the revival and rehabilitation of the two rivers seemed to have been next to impossible.
Manila Bay areas in Bulacan waters were also found with tons of garbage during authorities inspection of the range of the oil spill in Bataan coastal areas July last year.
