EARTH SCIENCE

MODULE NO. 8
GENRATION OF WASTES

Activity 8.1 – Reaction Paper – Estero City

Guide Questions:
1. How is environment and economy related?
2. What could happen if Daniel Burnham’s plan push through?
3. What is the current situation of Estero City?
4. What are the efforts done to rehabilitate the estero?
5. How can we solve the problem in the estero?

The I-witness episode named “Estero City” was aired on June 17, 2017 and hosted by Howie
Severino from GMA Public Affairs. This episode is a 25-minute documentary that focuses on the
current situation of the estero in Manila, the history of the estero, the benefits of a fully
functional and progressive body of water to major cities and the rehabilitative measures that can
be taken or was implemented in the estero specifically. When describing the current situation of
the Estero City a statement that addresses it would be: “It had freely offered greater provisioning,
regulating, cultural, and supporting services before to local communities and other life forms
within its immediate ecosystem than today, when it had been relegated only to serve as a
tributary of Pasig River and sewer of human waste. The present status of the estero shows lesser
impact on life within its local ecosystem,” as reported by Santander (2019). In a more simple
sense, the once lively and functional Pasig River that allowed for cultures to be born and
economies to expand has now become a place filled with trash and waste and no longer lives up
to its full potential of being an attraction, a way for travel and trade or simply for tourist spots.
Furthermore, the estero is surrounded by squatters’ areas, restaurants and cultural spots, a limited
amount of plants and the river itself has so much waste and trash. However, even with these bad
characteristics, it can still be said that the estero can still be rehabilitated and serve its full
potential and it’s the people’s duty to be a river warrior and do their part in restoring the Pasig
River.

Bodies of water all over the world are of great cultural and historical significance.
Civilizations, cultures and economies emerged due to the innate need and want of humans to
make connections and develop the lands they lived in. With this need and want of people, nature
was utilized in order to accelerate the process of development by our ancestors. According to the
I-Witness Estero City documentary, the richest cities and lands in the world today are surrounded
by bodies of water that people used in barter and trade in the past. Examples of these are Manila
City, which is surrounded by the Pasig River, New York City, which is surrounded by the
Hudson River and Venice which is surrounded by the Grand Canal. From this we can clearly say
that the environment creates a way for economies to rise. In the most basic sense, the
environment provides the resources that a community needs and from these resources, people
can create new inventions and products that are made of materials that are available or abundant
in their region. Furthermore, rivers and lakes became a way of passage of barters and traders to
travel form one city to another to trade products and buy other products. This gave way to the
rise of economies in the world. Later, money would be invented and people would still use these
bodies of water to travel in order to buy and sell products. In addition, people were able to form
human societies as the separations between lands became clearer because of these bodies of
water. In a way, people found a reason to form communities and relationships. However, with the
numerous benefits of the environment to the economy came the detrimental effects to the
environment. Unfortunately, watching the documentary also made me feel a sense of clarity as
to the negative impacts of the economy to the environment and how this phenomenon, in turn,
also gives negative effects to the economy back. To be clearer, the documentary highlighted the
fact that some industries dump their trash, waste and emissions in the Pasig River. Due to this,
the Pasig River became heavily polluted and has a very rancid smell which forces people to be
discouraged from utilizing the spots around the river into tourist places or attractions that can
raise up the income and economy around the said place. “I really feel that if we clean the esteros
it will create economic wellbeing” according to Gina Lopez, former DENR secretary. This would
imply that the links of the economy and the environment are strong and that most people want to
rehabilitate the estero in order to improve economic growth.

It is clear, though, that I also felt a sense of anger and frustration especially towards the
government because this issue is of a great and wide importance as a reflection of the type of
society and government that we have today. Gina Lopez was an environmentalist and she was
recently kicked out of her seat in the DENR during this documentary, her rejection being on May
3, 2017. However, even if she was already not in office, she still went to the estero to check up
on the status of the place. This is a reflection that the system relies on philanthropy and people of
passion and love for their advocacies in order to achieve social change rather than government
projects which prove to be highly political and biased. This can be seen through looking at the
estero and seeing how little positive change it has experienced in the recent years. In addition, it
can be said that the priorities of the government are not only controversial but ineffective and
unnecessary. “The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is under fire
following the dumping of artificial white sand along the Manila Baywalk. The government
defends its decision, saying the beautification of the bay will “signify cleanliness.” As reported
by Rappler.com. This statement can be made because of the current issue of the Dolomite sand in
Manila Bay where professionals are saying that the sand will only damage aquatic and marine
life as well as posing hazardous risk to people around the area, the resources and budget used for
this project could have been delegated for the rehabilitation of the estero and pave the way for a
more natural way of tourist attraction. “Groups have slammed the DENR Project, saying it
focused on aesthetic improvement over existing environmental concerns that Manila Bay already
faces. Others raised concerns over the government’s priority projects amid the coronavirus
pandemic” As reported by Rappler.com, Rey (2020). This is a reflection that ensuring that the
waterways of Manila are rehabilitated is not a top priority Although the documentary did not
mention anything about ineffective government projects, I think that it is a very important issue
at the moment that needs to be related to this topic in order to bring awareness to what the role of
the government is to environmental rehabilitation.

But lastly, I felt the sense of urgency and the importance of rehabilitating and restoring the
esteros. As mentioned in the documentary, Daniel Burnham’s plans were to make the esteros part
of the wide-scale plan to make Manila City beautiful. According to the Manila Times (2014),
Burnham had a five-part major proposal for the planning of Manila. The first would be a new
Luneta with fountains reminiscent of Rome, the second would be the establishment of a street
system which would secure direct communication, the third was the proper plans for the
locations of building sites for various activities, the fourth was developing Manila’s waterways
as transportation and lastly, provisions for summer resorts. If Burnham’s plans are pushed
through, all of the proposals above will be solved, as well as the traffic problem as mentioned by
Howie in the documentary. This made me feel very inspired and helped me recognize the
importance of rehabilitating the esteros because I can envision clearly how the city would look
like given these plans. I felt the urgency of cleaning up the esteros especially that the population
is only getting bigger. I think that the esteros of Manila can still be rehabilitated as long as people
are working together to bring this change. An example would be the River Warriors that are
mentioned in the documentary. The current efforts being done, as reported by Development.asia
(2016), to rehabilitate the esteros and needs to be continued by the community and the
government are: 1) relocating the squatters and giving them affordable housing options as well as
livelihood training options 2) the movement of the “River Warriors,” a group of residents who
volunteered to clean up the river and actively campaigned to promote behavior change who went
from house to house raising people’s awareness on the importance of waste management and the
use of proper sanitation facilities and used the project-funded storybooks and magazines for
storytelling sessions with children and women, respectively, to convey the importance of waste
segregation 3) the reforms made in the way where waste was managed namely: collection,
transfer and storage schedules and points were set-up in selected alleys and lastly 4) the low-cost
condominial sewage system collects household water through a network of PVC pipes and
manholes connected to a sump pit, which temporarily stores the wastewater. Solar-powered
submersible pumps then convey the wastewater into an anaerobic baffled reactor—an anaerobic
digester capable of treating wastewater. Maynilad, which is a water and sewage concessionaire,
removes system solid wastes and sludge monthly. I think that with the different actions that
communities and the government are trying to take, the esteros of Manila will be rehabilitated as
long as people are willing to create change and the government chooses to prioritize the
rehabilitation of the estero and take advantage of the plans and visions that Daniel Burnham had
for the city of Manila.

In conclusion, we should make a bigger effort to restore the esteros of Manila because it will
be beneficial towards so many stakeholders. The economy would be benefited because of the
potential tourist attraction and potential business around the esteros. The squatters will be
prioritized by the government and relocated in order for them to have a better home. The
environment can be more alive and the esteros can be clean and not be polluted anymore. If
people work together in order to make this happen, the esteros will be more, if not equally as,
beautiful as the vision of Howie, Gina Lopez, David Burnham and other people who dream of a
Beautiful Manila City.
 References:

GMA Public Affairs. (2017, June 18). I-Witness: “Estero City,” dokumentaryo ni Howie

Severino (full episode). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao6g9tEmNy0

How to Revive an Ailing River. (2019, September 13). Development Asia.

https://development.asia/case-study/how-revive-ailing-river

Palafox, A. F. ". A. (2014, August 6). Revisiting Daniel Burnham’s plan for Manila and

Baguio (1). The Manila Times.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2014/08/06/opinion/columnists/revisiting-daniel-burnhams-

plan-manila-baguio-1/117058/

Rey, A. (2019, March 16). Manila Bay rehab: The challenge of cleaning up the nation’s waste.

Rappler.

https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/stilt-houses-manila-bay-rehabilitation-series

-part-1

Santander, Noel & Dango, Josephine & Gabatbat, Ma. Emperatriz. (2019). The Impact on Life

of Estero de San Miguel.