As a young boy, small pail in hand, I would gather mussels, shore crabs (which I knew as talangka), and fish along the breakwall of Manila Bay on Roxas Boulevard, for my family’s meal. I imagined myself like the fishermen who were a daily sight. During the summer, some boys came to swim on the water after their circumcision, as ordered by their “arbularyo” who believed that the seawater was good for sterilizing their fresh proofs of newly achieved manhood. With them, I would swim and sometimes watch the sunset. How clean Manila Bay was in those days. But that is now history. Gone are the mussels, shore crabs and fish. Those fishermen are now waste pickers of plastic trash that they sell to junk shops for some money to buy fish. Those who continue fishing have had to venture far away, braving all sorts of danger from the sea and stiff competition from big fishing fleets.

Papa, J. C. (2018, July 18). Save Manila Bay. Philippine Daily Inquirer, p. A11.