Reviving the Pasig

You can smell the stink from the Pasig River miles even before you get a glimpse of its brackish waters. The river cuts a dark swath through the heart of Metro Manila, eventually dumping its waste of plastic, wood, carcasses, feces and chemicals into the equally polluted Manila Bay.  Indeed, the Pasig has become an open-air sewer. The factories that have sprung up on its banks vomit their waste into the great river.

The Pasig is the country’s most celebrated waterway.  Rizal and Balagtas sang paeans to it. Nick Joaquin said it was the Pasig that built Manila. A classic ode to the river is Nicanor Abelardo’s “Mutya ng Pasig.”