“May we suggest that they also look into why the Philippine Reclamation Authority allowed massive reclamation projects in Manila Bay?”
MMDA’s Romando Artes is quoted as having described the dolomite beach in Roxas Boulevard as a cause for the slow release of floodwaters from Malate, and rightly so. I wonder why his predecessors inb the previous administration never bothered to caution DENR’s Roy Cimatu from his monumental folly.
Ostensibly in compliance with a Supreme Court decision during GMA’s time mandating the restoration of our beautiful bay to its pristine condition, DENR’s Cimatu under the previous administration poured crushed dolomite from the mountains of Cebu into the bay’s periphery, about one kilometer long and twenty meters wide.
Thereafter, he and his cohorts at the DENR proudly billed their dolomite beach masquerading as white sand as a “tourist attraction,” and indeed it was quite an instagram novelty for domestic tourists and balikbayans alike.
They even fenced their magnum opus and put up a two-storey “administrative office” complete with hired security guards to safeguard their artificial contraption which has become a monument to bad taste and foolish innovation, laced with graft, no doubt.
Now that climate change and a lack of drainage canals have left Taft Avenue and its environs, including where I have lived for half a century, perennially flooded with every downpour, party-lister Terry Ridon wants the HoR to investigate this abomination called the dolomite beach.
While at it, may we suggest that they also look into why the Philippine Reclamation Authority allowed massive reclamation projects in Manila Bay?
For if a small artificial beach can block floodwaters from being released to Manila Bay, how much more those artificial islands that block not only the natural flow of water but would even steal the magnificent sunset from the eyes of ordinary folk?
Those “builders” who have used other people’s money to reclaim their islands and are now facing a shortage of sand, having gouged out nearby sources from Cavite to Zambales, may well lose their shirts in the process. With little demand from the expected Chinese market and more distant sources of sand (if any), what will be left will be eyesores, mountains of sand which will blow into our faces each time we sit by the bay.
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Inspired by the racist and bigot that their current POTUS is, US Customs and Border Protection employees forcibly removed 18 Filipino workers from a cruise vessel docked at Norfolk in Virginia. Handcuffed and humiliated, the Filipino seafarers were sent back to the Philippines and barred from entering the US of A for at least ten years despite having valid work visas.
Fil-Am groups condemned the workplace raids as a “disturbing trend“ where crew members are deported under false pretenses and without criminal charges.
Our president is now in Washington DC, “summoned” by their racist POTUS who thinks and acts like he is the “emperor of the world”. Would that our leader could act more like Brazil’s Lula, or even the president he succeeded and surrendered to a foreign tribunal.
My own take: BbM will come back with a trophy in time for his SONA next Monday, likely a few percentage points reduction from the 20% tariff that Trump earlier imposed, but we should be wary of the fine print in the “reciprocal agreement” that his host and his panel of negotiators will ram down our throat.
Worse, I fear that there will be a verbal agreement to expand the activities of the US military under the EDCA which may well endanger Filipino lives and property in the event of a confrontation between the two superpowers operating in our region.
Beggars cannot be choosers, more so if the weaker country is yet bewitched by the siren song of “special relations.”
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There will be few surprises in the leadership posts of the two houses of the 20th Congress.
Chiz Escudero has very cunningly parlayed his artful dodging of the impeachment trial of the vice-president into an overwhelming advantage over Tito Sotto and his small band of “veteran” supporters.
Winning over the pro-Duterte senators along with Bam and Kiko, it was Escudero’s game from Election Day 2025.
At least we will have a vociferous and active minority who will take on the role of the opposition in the Senate.
In the HoR, it’s all over but the counting, as Speaker Martin Romualdez is set to retain his crown.
About the only powerful position that we will await with bated breath is who would chair the powerful Appropriations Committee.
Will the new chair signal a possibility of reform and fiscal prudence, or back to the same old and greedy ways of the past?
