The Philippines passed a law Republic Act No. 9275 which is also known as "Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004". This law was signed and approved by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on March 22, 2004. It states:
The Mandate is clearly to protect bodies of water from pollution and to create a national Sewerage and septage management program as well as Domestic sewage Collection, Treatment and Disposal with the help of LGU, DPWH, DOH and other concerned agencies, shall emply septage or combined sewerage-septage management stystem.
The DOH was tasked to lead, with coordination with other government agencies, to formulate guidelines and standards for the collection, treatment and disposal of sewage including guidelines for the establishment and operation of centralized sewage treatment system.
Local government units shall share the responsibility in the management and improvement of water quality within their territorial jurisdictions.
Each local government unit shall within six (6) months after the establishment of the water quality management area action plan prepare a compliance scheme in, accordance thereof, subject to review and approval of the governing board.
Each local government unit shall, through its Environment and Natural Resources Office (ENRO) established in Republic Act No.7160, have the following powers and functions:
a) Monitoring of water quality;
b) Emergency response;
c) Compliance with the framework of the Water Quality Management Action Plan;
d) To take active participation in all efforts concerning water quality protection and rehabilitation; and
e) To coordinate with other government agencies and civil society and the concerned sectors in the implementation of measures to prevent and control water pollution: Provided, however, That in provinces/cities/municipalities where there are no environment and natural resources officers, the local executive concerned may, with the approval of the Secretary of the DENR designate any of his official and/or chief of office preferably the provincial, city or municipal agriculturist, or any of his employee: Provided, finally, That in case an employee is designated as such, he must have sufficient experience in environmental and natural resources management, conservation and utilization.
That being said, the following problems like the one in the picture below, should be addressed to ENRO and local government should formulate the Sewage Collection, Treatment and Disposal of the said pollutant, which if left unsolved and un attended will eventually flow into the Calumpang river and will further damage the river.
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| Courtesy: Sandy Fondevilla (FB post) |
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| Courtesy: Sandy Fondevilla (FB post) |
Mayor Beverley of Batangas City should spearhead the initiative of giving the people of Batangas a cleaner River by allocating time and energy to study and further acquire the necessary land and facilities for the implementation of a much more centralized waste water management in the City of Batangas - not only in Poblacion but the whole City which discharges all the effluents and waste into a single river system.
It is just a matter of time before the fate of Pasig River be repeated in the Batangas City itself.
Let us protect the environment not just by planting trees, but also cleaning up the waste water that we use before discharging it to the river.
Most of you don't think that the simple bath soap that you use is harmful to river fish if it is left untreated. The more amount the soaps and oils and other human wastes that we discharges to the river directly, the more the environment becomes polluted.
Let us all help and save the water from pollution. Water and air are the basic human needs - save them.
#SaveCalumpang
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