Unenforced

At best, it is a futile exercise. At worst, it is a conscious effort at self-deception.

Our environmental agencies have built a cottage industry out of imposing the highest standards for water quality in our rivers. But our rivers have the worst quality water compared to anywhere else.

Why this is being done baffles any reasonable mind. Despite insisting on the highest standards, our environmental agencies have neither the technology nor the manpower to see these standards enforced.

The standards exist only on paper. The reality remains that – in the National Capital Region particularly – we have the most polluted waterways in the world.

At the Marikina and Pasig rivers, ammonia levels exceed safe levels several hundreds of times. The San Juan River and Manila Bay exhibit dangerously high phosphate and ammonia levels. The gap between official standards for water quality and actual water conditions resembles the distance between heaven and earth.

The General Effluent Standard (GES) issued by the DENR through Administrative Order No. 2021-19 limits ammonia content in waterways to just 4 mg per liter. In actuality, our rivers have ammonia content of 10 to 20 mg per liter.

The government standard for nitrate content is set at 14 mg per liter. In actuality, the nitrate content of our rivers is 20 to 30 mg per liter.

The country maintains the most stringent limit for phosphate content at 4 mg per liter. Elsewhere in the region, the average phosphate limit is set at 20 mg per liter.

Marikina River exceeds safe ammonia content by 300 times. The safe limit is 0.06 mg per liter. The existing level is 19 mg per liter. This toxic water floods our communities after heavy rainfall.

Pasig River exceeds safe ammonia levels by 70 times. Manila Bay’s phosphate levels are 22.5 times higher than the safe limit of 4.51 mg per liter. The government standard is 0.20 mg per liter – a total fantasy. Yet we allow people to swim in the bay and consume fish caught in its waters.

Based on recent tests, ammonia concentrations at San Juan River is nearly 12 times above safe limits of 0.70 mg per liter. It is dangerous to even inhale the stink from this waterway.

Our neighboring countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam are able to maintain higher water quality in their rivers without the grand show of bureaucrats declaring the most stringent pollution standards. This is because citizens in these countries respect their waterways. They do not use the waterways as dumping ground for trash. Nor do they allow homes and businesses to dump untreated water into the rivers.

In Singapore, where clean water is scarce, waste water is treated and made potable again.

The current practice of our bureaucrats of chasing unattainable standards places exorbitant costs on everybody. While fantastic regulatory standards place a heavy financial burden on consumers, government habitually neglects meeting the crucial sanitation needs of millions settled along the waterways.

Our environmental bureaucrats draw up impossible standards in the comfort of their air conditioned offices and then expect the private sector to bear the entire burden for meeting those fantasy standards. There is no sustained program to involve the communities in a practical effort to keep water quality in our rivers at safe levels.

Government cannot continue abdicating on its responsibilities. It cannot simply issue unrealistic standards and expect the private sector to clean up our waters. The private sector does not have the hundreds of billions needed to meet the DENR’s fantasy standards. Even if they somehow find the funds, they will have to recoup their losses by raising prices. The final burden will be borne by all consumers – as usual.

Instead of imperiously issuing impossible standards, we will be better off if government agencies pivot towards common sense measures and invite the public to participate in cleaning up our waterways. Among the common sense measures the DENR can do are: expanding water treatment coverage, a major community effort to clean up our rivers, ensuring affordable water services for Filipino families, an expedited infrastructure program to reduce dumping on our rivers and encouragement of private sector engagement.

The DENR’s GES policy needs urgent review. The quixotic standards prescribed will only kill our economy along with our waterways.

Massive investments are being made by private companies in helping make our rivers safer – including the billions put in by San Miguel Corporation in dredging our choked waterways. Dredging, by itself, will not solve the effluent problems.

The least our environment bureaucrats can do is to match private sector contributions with government counterpart projects. Only then can we begin hoping our waterways could become relatively safe.

The challenge goes beyond the DENR. We need safe disposal of our trash so that they do not leech into our water table. We need our local governments to enforce strict sanitary requirements on our riverside communities – often the most marginalized. We need many water treatment plants and check dumping of untreated water. We need the DPWH to build the infrastructure to help protect our waterways.

In a word, we need a comprehensive, all-of-government program to save our rivers. The signal must come from the very top. Brightly lit promenades are good; but they do not improve water quality.

Cleaning up our waterways will need a lot of work with little self-congratulatory ceremonies to go with it.