It is not an exaggeration to say that President Duterte’s dramatically termed “Battle for Manila Bay,” his grand project to clean up what has been the polluted-landscape symbol of the Philippines, will be a watershed in our nation’s history. Its impact on our culture and institutions will go beyond simply the physical accomplishment of cleaning up the bay and its waterfront. That area had been the Philippine version of the mythical Augean stables of ancient Greek legend; the cleaning of centuries of horse shit there seemed an impossible task until the demi-god Hercules did the job — cleverly rechanneling a nearby river to flow through it. (Duterte and Environment Secretary Frank Cimatu’s version of that: Get a wave of over 5,000 people to “flow” through it, and clean it up.)

Tiglao, R. D. (2019, January 30). Manila Bay clean-up: ‘Broken windows’ theory on a grand scale. The Manila Times, pp. A1, A2.