Fishing in the Polluted Manila Bay

I couldn’t help but feel sad for the current state of the Manila Bay.

Manila Bay is the body of water that covers the seas to the west of Manila City and the nearby provinces. It is the best harbor in the Philippines and majority of sea vessels enter Manila Bay to reach the busiest ports in the country. Before the Spanish Colonization and until now, Manila Bay is the main source of food for many Filipinos. Old people still say stories of how beautiful and clean Manila Bay is. Now, due to neglect and irresponsibility, it only serves as the largest sewage and dumping area of Metro Manila.

Last week, I saw Manila Bay up close, when we did a project at Centennial Park in Navotas City. I could see and smell the sorry state of Manila Bay. The water is totally darkened and volumes of trash are floating everywhere. The smell of Manila Bay is sickening. The bad thing is that the odor stuck to our skin after we did the project for the whole day.
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The black sea. Notice the trash floating on the water.

To my surprise, I saw a group of children fishing on the Manila Bay. They told me that they started fishing since 6:30 AM and they are fishing their lunch.
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 Kids still fish from the Manila Bay.

They are using nylon threads with hook and weight at the end. Once they feel something tugging their nylon thread, they will instantly tug the thread to catch the fish. They use “ipis dagat” (sea cockroaches) as their bait. A kid said that he have a hard time catching the ipis dagat because they ran very fast. Ipis dagat are plenty on the sea walls and rocks beside Manila Bay.
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Ipis dagat everyone?

Fishes still live in Manila Bay. The kids already caught many fishes since early morning, which is enough for their lunch. The fish is not larger than the size of a regular cellphone. They fry it or cook it by vinegar (kilawin). However, I am concerned with those fish because it is possible that it ingested the filth and poison in Manila Bay. It is possible that eating those fish poses great risk to those kids’ health.
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Fish for lunch.

Fishing is still a sizable industry in Manila Bay. I saw large fishing vessels coming from Navotas Fish Port. The fish port is still one of the largest drop-off points for fishes and marine foodstuff in the country.
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 Fishing vessels berthed on the Manila Bay coastline.

Manila Bay is an important part of the Philippines. However, because of our neglect, it became one of the most polluted seas in the world. I hope that the government’s effort to clean Manila Bay will continue. I do hope that the Filipino people will also learn to respect Mother Nature and stop throwing trash on rivers and waterways, especially the ones that are connected to Manila Bay.

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