Save Our Sunsets ( SOS)

“If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.”

      ~~~   Ralph Waldo Emerson 

I lived in Manila for almost a decade and when I was there I always treated my friends & relatives who were visiting Manila for the first time to a tour of the famous beautiful sunset in Manila Bay, near the Rizal Park (Luneta). It was also convenient for me as I was teaching in a nearby state university. 

Then, during the 1998 election campaign, I joined the Roco- Santiago Presidential & Vice Presidential campaign team and we resided in the Boulevard Mansion at Roxas Boulevard in front of Manila Bay. This otherwise cold concrete jungle that is Manila became bearable because we had a beautiful view of the sea and of stunning sunsets. And indeed, in this way, cities can be beautiful!

On February 12, 2013, lovers of stunning sunsets congregated at Roxas Boulevard to protest the proposed reclamation by a Manila Goldcoast Development Corporation of about 26,000 hectares in Manila Bay which will surely affect the remaining marine life and all coastal communities in the famous Manila Bay. To be sure, this protest is an uphill battle as the strategy also calls for the repeal of a city ordinance that removed the ban on reclamation projects in Manila Bay; and a revisit of the mandate of the Philippine Reclamation Authority or formerly the Public Estates Authority, an agency of the Office of the President in charge of reclamation projects.

But, hope springs eternal and there is confidence that a critical mass will be mustered to influence policy makers to stop this proposed reclamation. The case against reclamation is now easily argued by just invoking that for a long time now, the carrying capacity of the congested cancerous maldevelopment that is Manila has reached its limit.

Voluminous papers have been written on the causes of constant flooding in Manila and one of the culprits, as we commonly know by now, is that our premier mega city is one congested big basin and existing waterways are not able to contain all the rainfall. 

Architect Nathaniel "Dinky" Von Einsiedel presents evidence that reclamation is one of the causes of flooding.  He cites that one of the reasons for the constant flood in the coastal communities in Navotas and Malabon

area is the  Dagat-dagatan reclamation, a housing project for thousands of informal settlers in the seventies in Navotas near Tondo. This flood also spills over to the Kamanava area :Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela.

His argument is that reclaimed areas “lengthened the distance that flood waters have to travel to drain out to the sea.”   

Aside from flooding, my fellow lovers of sunsets are concerned that the proposed reclamation project is a privatization of areas currently enjoyed by the public towards pure profit that will serve the interests of the few.

I am so consumed by this passion for saving our sunsets as I am also fighting to save another beautiful view of the sea in a nearby local island city. As Ipat Luna, an environment lawyer says, “local governments should not allow themselves to be used by private developers that want to subvert the ban on owning public domain.” 

Indeed, SAVE OUR SUNSETS (SOS) is a symbol of our advocacy towards preserving common spaces for the enjoyment of the wider public and not just for pure profit that will benefit just the filthy few.