Hopes up with new Pasig cleanup effort

When it begins its projected ₱95.5-billion Pasig River Expessway project, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) plans to also clean up and improve the flow of water along the Pasig River. It will be embarking on a project – cleanup of the Pasig – that has frustrated so many administrations and agencies of the government.

The 125-kilometer river from its beginning at the Laguna de Bay in the east to its end in Manila Bay in the west was the main transportation route in the early days before roads and highways were built. It also served as a major source of water, food, and livelihood

But as Manila and the neighboring cities grew, they drew people from the provinces who built their houses near factories and pigpens along its shores and those of the many streams that flow into it from San Juan, Mandaluyong, Quezon City, and Pasig. It became so polluted that the river began to give offa smell in the 1970s, all fishing activities were stopped in the 1980s, and it was declared biologically dead in the 1990s.