For almost 100 years, Manila Bay has been abused, misused, and mistreated by Filipinos living around the bay, from Cavite to Manila to Bulacan. Just like our Iloilo Rivers and seas, it has been a symbol of environmental degradation and symptomatic of an environmental curse we have heaped upon ourselves that plagues our country today. Decades of being used as a garbage dump, outlet for polluted and untreated sewage resulted in the demise of corals, reduced fish population, a more than 6 ft. thick mud siltation and plastic debris in the sea bed plus a very high fecal coliform count with biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of 2,200 mg/liter (standard is only 30 mg/l).

Mana-ay, E. (2019, February 26). Lessons from the ongoing Manila Bay rehab. The Daily Guardian, p. 4.