Risks of ‘new’ airport site

San Miguel Corp. (SMC), part owner of Philippine Airlines, presented to President Aquino an architectural rendering of an international airport that it proposes to build on an already reclaimed part of the bay and on land still to be reclaimed. According to press reports, the President was “happy” about the proposal and endorsed it to Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya.

What a clever approach to countering and reducing to irrelevancy the arguments made by ecologists, environmentalists, sociologists, geologists, and even by bishops led by Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, against land reclamation in Manila Bay. Their principal arguments are: (1) Reclamation in Manila Bay has caused Metro Manila to suffer massive flooding year in, year out; (2) A reclaimed land, when subjected to strong earthquakes, liquefies, causing structures built on it to sink;  (3) The reclaimed land in Manila bay sits on a shelf that slopes toward the bay; earthquake of huge magnitude may cause the reclaimed land, together with all the structures built on it, to slide into the bay.

Who would go against a massive project funded by private money like a new international airport that would be the finest in this part of the world, so its proponents say? It seems odd, however, to locate it on a reclaimed land beside Metro Manila, even though a Japanese study group has already recommended the Sangley naval base in Cavite as an ideal location for an international airport, and said that any land reclamation there will not affect the ecology of Metro Manila.

If SMC is really sincere in its offer to build on its own a new international airport for Metro Manila, an airport that will be the best in all of Asia, then I am recommending  an alternative site that I think practically no one will object to—a still-to-be-reclaimed land in  Laguna Lake.

Reclaiming land in Laguna Lake will have many benefits. First, it will provide land for various infrastructure projects like the proposed international airport. Second, it will dredge the lake of all the silt it has accumulated over the past century; the silt can be used as filling for the reclamation. Third, it will increase the volume of the lake and provide a buffer to minimize the flooding of Metro Manila. Fourth, it will revive the fishing industry of the lake.  Fifth, it will improve the ecology of the lake’s entire watershed area. Sixth, it will provide a catalyst for the towns around the lake for their economic progress. Then if the Pasig River is also dredged, the flooding of Metro Manila may become a nightmare of the past.

I hope the above will provoke an honest-to-goodness debate on reclamation projects in Manila Bay, on SMC’s proposed airport in Manila Bay, and on the proposed alternative site for an airport in Laguna Lake.

—RODOLFO R. MONDONEDO,

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