GMA urged to certify LLDA reform bill as urgent

The Philippine Star-NATION

January 04, 2008

A multisectoral group of farmers, fishermen, non-government organizations, Church, women, youth and local government units in Laguna and Rizal have urged President Arroyo to certify the Laguna Lake Development (LLDA) reform bill as urgent.

Laguna fourth district Rep. Edgar San Luis said the Laguna Lake needs to be saved by the government, since no less than LLDA general manager Edgar Manda warned that without any support from the private sector, it will "die" in five years.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza couldn't agree more, calling LLDA a "useless agency" that allowed the lake to deteriorate in the last 41 years

LLDA derives funds from fines and penalties and has not received any government subsidy.

"If no less than Atienza is sounding this alarm, surely it is not another case of the boy who cried wolf,"  San Luis said.

"What is happening to Laguna Lake is a graphic example of the Filipino's inhumanity to his environment,"  he added.

San Luis is advocating a so-called "paradigm shift" in the stewardship of Laguna Lake from command-control structure to massive participation of its stakeholders, which he said is the only way to save the lake.

A steady decline in fish catch, resulting from unabated pollution due to the uncontrolled urban sprawl and polluting, factories in the region, has been observed in Laguna Lake.

"I believe that this is one issue where the executive and legislative branches can join hands to address a crisis that has gripped the 15 million people of the Laguna de Bay region for about two decades now, starting in the Marcos era,"  San Luis said.

"People continue to ignore basic sanitary practices.  Municipalities disregard anti-pollution measures.  Vessels plying the lake spill oil.  Fishpens and fishcages leave chemical residues from feeds,"  he said.

Farmers who use it for irrigation plow in chemical residues from fertilizers and biocides.  Sediments from tributaries have rendered portions of the lake shallow.  Factories using it for industrial cooling alter the temperature that affects aquatic life," San Luis said.

According to him, Laguna Lake is a multi-purpose water resource system used for flood control, fisheries, domestic water supply, irrigation, hydroelectric power generation, transport, and navigation.

The lake, according to San Luis, has become shallow over the years, "at 2.8 meters from an original depth of seven meters with some one million cubic meter of soil deposited in the lake annually from massive soil erosion resulting from the destruction of its watershed."

San Luis also bewailed the lake's "conversion into a virtual pozo negro of Metro Manila and the adjacent lakeshore towns that has resulted into the serious fouling up of its waters, slowly killing and decimating fisheries and threatening the livelihood of fishermen."