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By Rene Q. Bas, Editor in Chief
One beautiful Friday in August,
Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Bayani Fernando
told an interviewer that the air has become fresher and cleaner in
his area of responsibility.
I can say I have noticed that too
in my daily drive up and down EDSA and Roxas Boulevard. Some of my
friends also have felt there is less pollution nowadays.
Fernando explained that the
decline in pollution level was mainly caused by the “massive
sweeping and vacuuming of the National Capital Regions [NCR]
roadways” that MMDA had begun to do in the later part of 2007. The
agency has a Roadways Cleaning Operations Group (RCOG) devoted to
this task.
The MMDA chairman should have
backed his contention with scientific data of per cubic meter counts
of total suspended particulates (TSP) in the air of various part of
the NCR.
Instead, he cited the RCOG’s
daily round-the-clock work of sweeping and vacuuming carbon dust and
other pollutants (including emissions from automotive engines and
particles from decayed trees and plants) and gave this as the reason
for the fresher, cleaner air on EDSA, Roxas Boulevard, C-5 and other
major highways.
With large sweeping machines
mounted on trucks, RCOG also cleans up gutters and flyover walls.
All this RCOG work—in addition
to city policemen, LTO and MMDA enforcers stopping smoke-belching
buses, jeepneys and even privately owned vehicles —must surely
have reduced air pollution considerably.
Chairman Fernando happily told
his interviewer, which GMANews TV reported verbatim, “Damang-dama
na nang lahat na malinis-linis na ang hangin at nabawasan na ang air
pollutants sa mga naturang lugar dahil sa walang-tigil naming
paglilinis mula umaga hanggang madaling araw (Everyone can now feel
that air pollution in the metropolis has been reduced because of our
non-stop dawn-to-dusk cleanup operations). “
Unfortunately, what most people
do feel about cleaner Metro Manila air will amount to mere anecdotal
testimony unless confirmed by the air-quality reports of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Environment
Management Bureau (DENR-EMB). These reports actually measure the TSP
of selected areas in the NCR.
The absence of scientific data
gave a militant environment-watchdog institution, one that has been
observed to be markedly anti-BF (Bayani Fernando) but is rather well
regarded by the scientists of the University of the
Philippines-based AGHAM organization.
Two days after Chairman Fernando
made his claim, the national coordinator of the Kalikasan People’s
Network, Clemente Bautista, sent a statement to the media disputing
Fernando.
Kalikasan said Fernando’s claim
of a 50-percent improvement in Metro Manila’s pollution levels had
no basis.
“Pasay, Makati and Valenzuela
are among the areas that usually exceed the standard 230 micrograms
per normal cubic meter for total suspended particulates (TSP),”
Bautista said. He had documentary proof to back up his anti-Bayani
tirade: the weekly air quality monitoring of the EMB.
Bautista also pointed out
that a World Bank technical paper had said that Metro Manila has a
TSP frequently five times higher than the World Health
Organization’s Air Quality Guidelines.
“Manila itself is known to be
one the most polluted areas in the Philippines,” Bautista said.
“The areas of Pasay and EDSA, which Mr. Fernando claims to have
significantly improved are still among the most polluted areas in
Metro Manila in terms of amount of TSP. Now, he wants people to
believe that air quality has improved because of his mechanized
street sweeping? No sane person would buy that claim.”
Bautista also cited a joint
report of DENR and World Bank that there are nearly 5,000 premature
deaths each year in Manila due to respiratory and cardiovascular
diseases brought about by exposure to poor quality air.
“Eighteen million people still
live in cities below desired and healthy living conditions even
after the Clean Air Act of 1999 has been passed and countless other
development projects and programs. People have endured years of
listening to lip service without witnessing actual results and
improvement in the Filipino quality of life,” Bautista said.
MMDA, as far as a segment of the
Metro Manila population can see, has done a creditable job of
improving the traffic mess.
Many, like this writer, would
like to see done throughout the NCR what Chairman Fernando did when
he was mayor of Marikina—and his wife the current mayor, Marides
Fernando, continues to do—in that city.
He turned Marikina into one of
Asia’s most environment-friendly, unpolluted, healthy, pleasant,
livable and orderly cities.
Marikina’s waste management
system is a model for the whole country.
The story of a barangay in Quezon
City is told in the story “Barangay Bagumbayan shows how to cure
urban blight.”
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