It took six months to clean up Boracay’s waters. It will take seven years to clean up Manila Bay until it becomes as clean as in Boracay today, Secretary of Agriculture Emmanuel Pinol said in a radio interview this week. Even this estimate is an optimistic one, considering the fact that Boracay is a small island measuring about 10 square kilometers with many establishments along its shores polluting perhaps 10 square kilometers of open sea around it. Manila Bay is nearly 2,000 square kilometer of enclosed water. The pollution that flows into it via the Pasig river alone comes from over 600 square kilometers of congested neighborhoods that make up Metro Manila.

It will take years to clean up Manila Bay. (2019, January 18). Manila Bulletin, p. 8.