Going, going…

What was once a beautiful sight to behold in the late afternoons and early evening, from the vantage point of Roxas Boulevard is going, going…soon gone.

The re-blocking, whatever that means, of Manila’s famous seaside boulevard has caused heavy traffic, but it also allows one to pause and look at the bay where our fabled sunset, especially from December till early March, comes in a huge orb of orange glory.

While doing my regular brisk walks either in the boulevard’s cramped sidewalk, or near the earlier reclamation areas of the Cultural Center complex and the MOA, I come across the ugly sight of islands of gray sand being feverishly dumped into the bay by barges and cranes – to “reclaim” land from the sea.

Manila Bay used to be the back view of beautiful Sofitel, with its huge swimming pool and garden area, appreciated as well from the western suites of the hotel. Now all you can see is gray sand, barged in from Zambales or the San Nicolas shoal.

Some enterprising businessmen leased property adjacent to Sofitel from the CCP, put up a hotel and eateries where patrons could view the sea and the setting sun. Now their customers reap ugly gray sand when a strong wind blows, which is almost always.

In late 2008, the Supreme Court issued an SC Mandamus on Manila Bay, directing 13 government agencies to clean up, rehabilitate and preserve Manila Bay, even to the extent of stating that its waters must be “fit for swimming, skin-diving and other forms of recreation.”

Instead of following the writ of the highest tribunal, what we pass for a clean-up is a fake white sand “beach” on a less than 2-kilometer stretch ordered by a general who lorded it over the DENR, and put up a tacky two story structure labelled “mandamus offices.”

Worse, several local governments approved reclamation projects hastily, with careless concern for earlier approved metes and bounds, thereby in some cases creating legal conflicts which courts must now resolve.

The Philippine Reclamation Authority under the Office of the President for its part sanctioned these projects despite an earlier avowal of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte that he did not approve of such projects defiling the bay.

And so, real estate developers rushed to start their reclamation, from a bigtime Mindanao-based contractor, to SM, to Waterfront holdings, to J. Legaspi, the heirs of FF Cruz, and Solar Corporation, whose application started as early as 25 years ago but was finally green-lighted only last year.

Some developers took advantage of the twilight of the PRRD regime and the start of PFRM Jr., whose government has yet to appoint new administrators of the reclamation authority, to rush their midnight entitlements.

It is as if the DENR dumped dolomite from Alcoy in Cebu upon Manila Bay to condition the minds of the people that soon more sand, this time gray, will be dumped into it, and steal beauty from ordinary mortals who cannot afford to buy condominiums in the high-rises that will soon block our plebeian view of the glorious sunset.

While our country may not have a very big land area, we need not act like a Hong Kong or a Singapore whose sparse land and real estate demand necessitate reclaiming from the sea.

Move around the countryside and see hectares upon hectares of bare earth covered only by weeds.

You need not go far. The hills of Antipolo and Tanay alone beckon.

Since after the Second World War, with feverish reconstruction of the capital, people from the countryside have been enticed by “greener” urban pastures, crowding the cities and creating warrens of informal settlements.

This is true not only in Metro-Manila, but in Metro-Cebu as well.

Now of course, after 50 years or so of overseas employment being the sole poverty alleviation strategy, our OFWs come back and buy pricey condominium units in the metropolitan areas, badge of “having arrived.”

Those who go back to their home province build mini-mansions in the middle of farmlands which their parents got through land reform, yet they do not farm, thus contributing to our food supply problems.

While the OFW diaspora is temporary economic savior, it has also imperiled our food security, at the same time creating a lack of professionals in critical services like health and education.

Other than robbing us of one of the simple pleasures of Manilans, gazing into the beautiful sunset in the bay’s horizon apart from the environmental degradation they bring, I worry about the after-effect on the inner cities’ demography after construction work in the reclaimed areas shall have been completed.

Obviously, much of the brawn power needed for the multitude of construction activity will be sourced from the provinces.

After the temporary work, these workers will not go back to the provinces, and would instead settle in the national capital region, compounding our extreme population density.

And where, pray tell, will they find habitat?

Surely not in the mega-expensive reclaimed land where costs per square meter will be reserved for the uber rich, most of them foreigners.

They will crowd the now over-crowded and destitute warrens of the informal settlers.

Urban blight will worsen.

Of course, the developers may eventually lose their shirts. That is not an impossibility.

World economic conditions do not show immediate promise for massive relocation projects or even speculative investments in our real estate market by foreigners, whether Chinese or Korean.

And having voluntarily increased our chances to be drawn into the potential conflict between China and the USA, ours is not exactly a sure haven of peace and tranquility in the region.

What then happens, if the reclaimed islands are not populated enough, and investments in high-rise condominiums and commercial establishments do not come to fruition?

Then we will have ghostly and ghastly eyesores with barren islands floating in Manila Bay.

Their politically-connected developers will be neck-deep in debt, their local banks burdened with unpaid loans, the result of mindless pursuit of greedy profits.

We have seen that in Malaysia and African nations, where development halted when their foreign funders, mostly from China, stopped pouring in their promised investments.

Meanwhile, ordinary folks would do well to visit the promenades by the bay and seek whatever yet unblocked windows exist where they may view our sunsets and the splendor of our once-beautiful bay, while there is still time.

Manila Bay is going, going and soon gone.