“Gone are the days when one could gaze lazily at the beautiful orange orb of the setting sun majestically dying in the horizon of a clean bay, especially in the months of November till early March when cool winds waft in the air”
Thrice a week, starting at daybreak, I have been doing brisk walks, often by Manila Bay.
For the first time since its creation, I saw the “dolomite beach” that I once defended in this space when so many were criticizing the project due to environmental fears and alleged health hazards.
Since dolomite is not indigenous to the sea and was “mined” from the mountains of Alcoy in Cebu, there was quite a furor over the DENR-initiated creation of a “white sand” beach in that stretch between the US Embassy and the Manila Yacht Club, a distance of less than two kilometers.
I wrote then that crushed dolomite has also been added to resorts in Mactan, after Boholanos raised a howl when the earlier resorts filled their craggy beachfronts with real white sand taken away from the beautiful seaside of Anda. So don’t fret too much about it, I stated then.
As of now, only half, perhaps less of that short stretch, has been filled with the crushed dolomite, and one wonders when the project will be finished, or whether its P389 million budget has been spent and funds have to be scrounged further in the 2023 GAA to complete the project.
Most of the visitors and family groups who troop to the bayside marvel at the “creation,” posing for pictures with the “white sand” as backdrop, and one is happy for the little pleasures they get in these difficult times. To the “masa,” all the concerns on the bay’s bio-diversity are washed away by these simple pleasures.
But wait! What is this rust-painted monstrosity in the area fronting the Aristocrat Restaurant, likely a water reservoir camouflaged as an armored tank, complete with a clumsily designed “cannon” aimed at the bay? Is this symbolic of how we will defend our city from the intruders of the West Philippine Sea should hostilities erupt?
Tacky as tacky could be.
One is left to wonder what would happen to the beige-colored crushed dolomite when strong waves pummel the shores come typhoon season?
So, to avert such, inflated rubber gabions are being installed some 200 meters away, anchored to bedrock I suppose, acting like a breakwater to lessen the impact of the periodic waves upon the “creation”. Will the gabions be like King Canute commanding the waves to stop? Vamos a ver.
And then, to protect the project from a swarm of onlookers, a white “picket” fence has been erected, and the public allowed into the beachfront through a gated entrance and exit manned by the ubiquitous security guards.
Two proudly emblazoned “public restrooms” were built in the middle of the project, covering the view of the Manila Bay and its marvelous sunset from passersby, pedestrian or motorized.
There is also a small “souvenir shop” with a glass front. Though yet unopened to the public, one wonders why these were built right smack into the center of the stretch, blocking the view?
But what takes the cake is a two-story building with a glass frontage on whose façade is emblazoned in gleaming stainless steel — “Mandamus Agencies Office”. What a funny Latin name to identify an office which does nothing but obstruct the view.
Oh but they would say it was the Supreme Court which ordered the 13 agencies in 2008 through a writ of mandamus to “clean up, rehabilitate and preserve Manila Bay and maintain its waters to a level fit for swimming, skin diving and other forms of contact recreation”.
Yet there can be no swimming in the waters off the dolomite beach.
Granted, but why have an office in the middle of their beautification project? Do these mandamus officers and staff have to preen over their wonderful “creation” each time they meet? Any of these 13 agencies have space in their offices to spare, ne c’est pas.
Or, they could have lumped the offices, the souvenir shop, the water reservoir and the public restrooms on the end portions of the beach, to the north and south, bounded by the Manila Yacht Club and the US Embassy, right?
You need no architect (was there any?) to appreciate that consideration. Only a little bit of taste.
As you walk northwards, you reach the humongous compound of the US Embassy.
And you wonder why at this point, the sidewalk narrows down, and the embassy appropriated the walkway as a waiting area for the hundreds of Filipinos who line up for their all-too-difficult quest at getting an entry visa to the once upon a not-too-distant time, land of milk and honey.
Why did the City of Manila, or was it the national government, allow this misappropriation of public land?
In some part, the sidewalk narrows down to around 40 centimeters which the pedestrian could use, only to reach an abandoned public toilet before the Museo Pambata, its state of disrepair openly displayed for locals and foreign visitors alike.
Gone are the days when one could gaze lazily at the beautiful orange orb of the setting sun majestically dying in the horizon of a clean bay, especially in the months of November till early March, when cool winds waft in the air.
But wait! Gone forever will this world-appreciated beauty be when the many side-by-side reclamation projects “steal” the sunset away from the hoi polloi. From Paranaque to Pasay to Manila to Navotas, Manila Bay will be appropriated for the exclusive use of the moneyed elite, with high-end skyscrapers dotting its western front.
By then, the waters fronting the dolomite beach enclosed by an inflatable gabion will likely be fetid, as the newly constructed islands on municipal waters will trap the free flow of the bay’s waters.
But that is another regretful story in the benighted land where the simple pleasures of ordinary folks are always stolen by the rich and the mighty.