ILOILO CITY, Sept. 2 – The Iloilo River is a virtual waste recipient of all commercial and industrial establishments along its banks in this city. No less than 1-million cubic meter of untreated waste water is being discharged to the river every day, according to the city environment and natural resources office here.
Atty. Daniel Dinopol of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Iloilo Chapter said the lawyers were now apprehensive on the fate of the river as more waste water and solid wastes were thrown to the river everyday.
IBP helps the city government, specifically the CENRO in its battle against river destroyers by providing legal assistance to river enforcement agents in prosecuting violators of environmental laws.
Dinopol said the Iloilo River is actually an arm of the sea but a scenic divider of political land areas within the districts of Jaro, La Paz, Lapuz and Mandurriao and the districts of the city proper, Molo and Arevalo.
The river was once a major waterway from the mouth of the river and the Iloilo Strait and used by shippers to bring their industrial and agricultural cargo to the inland of Iloilo City. Boaters, likewise, have heydays ferrying boat passengers from the mouth of the river up to Molo, Arevalo and Oton areas.
But rapid urbanization and industrial and commercial expansion along its banks, including illegal fish traps and fish pens have congested the width of the river. Furthermore, urbanization brought siltation, garbage and waste water to the river, killing fishes, crustaceans, edible algae and other living organisms that thrive in the river.
Today, the Iloilo River is almost dying unless drastic and remedial measures are taken to preserve and save the river, according to CENRO Noel Hechanova.
With 13 hotels and 7 hospitals on top of numerous houses and commercial buildings by the riverbanks, augmented by more than 200 drainage pipes that discharged at the river, no less than 1-million cubic meter of untreated waste water are thrown to the river everyday.
Hechanova said that only 20 cubic meters of waste water discharged already need to be treated and 1-million cubic meter everyday already threatened the entire Iloilo River system.
Hechanova said that measures were undertaken immediately by new city mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog with the expansion and reconstitution of the Iloilo River Development Council chaired by the city mayor himself.
Mabilog has been apprised of the situation and has shown interest in reviving the river for tourism, navigation, livelihood and other beneficial uses.(PNA) RMA/AJP/LCPendon