As the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park reopened May 5, advocates slammed the Philippine Reclamation Authority’s (PRA) attempts to promote commercial development in Metro Manila’s lone wetland park.
The plans faced criticism following a now-deleted post by the PRA that supposedly advertised the area’s reclamation. Advocacy group Mangrove Matters PH condemned the agency's claim that mangroves in the park could be uprooted, moved, or replaced with new seedlings to make way for development.
The group also decried PRA’s claims that the park’s bird sanctuary status should be removed because it is dangerous to NAIA planes.
“Taliwas sa pahayag ng Philippine Reclamation Authority, hindi totoong ang reklamasyong gagawin sa LPPWP (Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park) sa halip, ang pagsisilbihan lamang nito ay ang interes ng iilan lalo na ng mga kapitalistang magpapakasasa sa mga itatayo rito,” advocate group Defend LPPWP mentioned in a Facebook post.
The PRA was quick to defend the nearby Las Piñas-Paranaque Coastal Bay Reclamation Project, claiming that it has jurisdiction over the area. Reclamation transforms bodies of water into land, usually for commercial development, by filling submerged areas with sandstone, limestone, and granite.
The wetland park is currently owned by the reclamation authority. Despite being a protected Ramsar site—a wetland designated as internationally important—the PRA claims that it has the authority to develop the area within “defined and regulated zones.”
However, this does not grant them full autonomy—the law consequently prohibits any entity from constructing or conducting business without a permit from the Protected Area Management Boards and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), which the PRA failed to present in their statement.
While Sen. Cynthia Villar passed Senate Bill No. 1536 or the LPPWP Protection Act on January 25 for a three-kilometer buffer zone from the habitat, it has yet to be signed into law. The law would transfer ownership of the park from PRA to the DENR.
The overlapping functions of DENR, PRA, and local government units historically made the protected areas hard to manage. Due to distribution of authority, local governments partner with private entities to manage habitats, a study of the Institute of Urban Management mentioned.
The study also found that the distribution of legitimacy in the area rendered public institutions weak and subjected such areas to the interests of the funded private institutions, co-opting their management. One example is the partnership of the Manila City Government, PRA, and Aseana City’s business establishments to fast-track Manila Bay’s reclamation under the DENR’s discretion.
Currently, groups continue to fight development efforts for the lone wetland park while waiting for the LPPWP Protection Act to reach the end of its legal tunnel.
“Tayo ay magnilay at isipin ang kahihinatnan ng ating kinabukasan kung ipagpapatuloy nating ipasabahala ang ating kalikasasan sa kamay ng mga taong hindi nararanasan ang mga epektong pilit nilang itinatago sa mata ng bayan,” said Defend LPPWP. ●
