An enduring legacy for the environment

WHEN the PUNCH first reported the results of the findings of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources two weeks ago, finding the rivers inside six of Dagupan City’s barangays seriously contaminated with coliform bacteria, the city government immediately went into a denial mode, and even threatened to physically harm our staff and columnists for The PUNCH’s “destructive and uncooperative policy”.

Until last week, the city government still did not define any concrete action to be taken to correct the reported contamination in the city’s rivers but simply went thru the motion of clarifying what coliform bacteria is, as if the issue will blow away with their academic exercises.

Finally, after their series of “clarifications” on the health risks posed by the presence of coliform bacteria, the city health officer came up with a strategy to eliminate or contain the level of coliform bacteria in the rivers. The government will now inspect houses constructed along the river banks and monitor presence of animals. Hooray!

While it took City Hall some time to realize that what the public was waiting for was its solution to the problem, it’s certainly still better late than never. Had the City Mayor merely insisted on training his guns on the “messengers for bad tidings”, he would have found out that his worst enemy were themselves, for being dense and negligent in spite of the official warnings.

Hopefully, the city government will sustain and even seek to improve its monitoring of the quality of the water in the city’s rivers to preempt any future adverse report about it.

But lest the populace get the impression that the problem is isolated and limited to the city of Dagupan, Atty. Mario Aglipay, a PUNCH reader pointed out to us – “Please take note that all town mayors along the Agno River dump their garbage on both banks of the said river and, if not on the banks of creeks, streams and all its other converging tributaries of the Agno River. The same is true with other towns using other streams of water that empty into the waters of Dagupan City and Lingayen Gulf as their garbage dumps.”

Indeed, BFAR must expand its testing to ensure that the province’s environment is not at serious risk anytime. It would serve Gov. Victor Agbayani well if he spearheaded the no-nonsense campaign to keep Pangasinan’s rivers and water potable and habitable.

The worst notoriety that an elected official can earn is to be blamed for the utter official neglect that led to the irreversible pollution and wanton destruction of our environment.

But the best legacy that an elected official (whether in a barangay, municipal, city or provincial level) in this province can have is to be remembered and credited by future generations for making the barangay’s, the town’s, and the province’s rivers teeming with fish, and the communities lush with green.

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