MANILA, July 25 (PNA) — A lawmaker has filed a bill creating a government agency that will rehabilitate, preserve and revive the quality of the Pasig River.
Rep. Jose Christopher Y. Belmonte (6th District, Quezon City), author of House Bill 5641, said the proposed Pasig River Rehabilitation and Development Authority will be an independent regulatory body possessing corporate attributes with quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative powers.
“It shall be the primary government agency that shall coordinate, plan, manage and implement the development programs and resource utilization in the Pasig River Basin System,” Belmonte explained.
Belmonte said despite full government support and intervention, the trend for further water quality deterioration and pollution affecting the Pasig River Basin System emerges to be in a constant downward scale.
“Untreated sewage and industrial effluent flows into it, and with poor waste collection and lack of proper landfills in nearby communities, the Pasig River has basically become a garbage depot,” Belmonte said.
Belmonte said the Pasig River is the habitat of 25 fish varieties and 13 types of aquatic plants before pollution had upset its ecology.
“As of 1997, there were only six remaining species of fish and two types of plants that can thrive in polluted waters,” he said.
Among the functions and powers of the Authority include the mandate to work with the MMDA and MWSS and its concessionaires to ensure the provision for adequate, dependable and reliable wastewater treatment facilities and sewerage systems in all their authorized service areas, particularly in the unserved and under-served communities, barangays or urban renewal areas (URAs) within the Pasig River Basin System.
The Authority is tasked to engage the services of the private sector through the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) process or through the Built-Operate and Transfer (BOT) Scheme under Republic Act 6957 or other acceptable forms of partnership and agreements in establishing its own water quality laboratory, environmental, biological and microbiological laboratory among other things.
The bill prohibits several acts such as discharging or causing to be deposited matter of any kind directly or indirectly along the margins or the water of the Pasig River, where the same shall be liable to be washed into the surface water either by the tide, storm, floods or other occurrences which cause water pollution or impeded the natural flow of the Pasig River.
Any person who commits any of the prohibited acts mentioned under this Act shall be punished by imprisonment of not less than one year but not more than three years or a fine of not less than PHP10,000 but not more than PHP50,000.(PNA)