Bridging the Gap
By Henry Funtecha

The Iloilo River and Port in the post-WW II

The outbreak of World War II signaled the end of the feverish commercial activity in the Port of Iloilo. Consequently, it also marked the death of Iloilo as the “Queen City of the South”. The Japanese destroyed a sizable portion of the commercial section of the city and a large chunk of the Iloilo harbor. Thus, by the end of the war, Iloilo City was almost reduced to ashes and its pier became a ghost frontier.

Aside from the heavy silting of the Iloilo River after the war, there was still a number of human activities that greatly affected its ecology and the economic viability of the Iloilo pier. These were the mushrooming of the fish corrals, the increasing number of occupants along the river's banks, the cases of encroachments, and the conversion of the banks into fishponds or subdivisions along its course. These activities persisted all throughout the post-war era though measures had been undertaken to minimize, if not to stop them.

In 1991, reports on the increase of occupants and reclamations of foreshore areas along the Iloilo River reached the attention of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Then DENR Regional Executive Director Apolinario Marquez Jr., in response, vowed to take measures to prevent possible environmental risks affected by these activities. No measure, however, was undertaken until 1993 when the Iloilo River Rehabilitation Program of Senator Franklin Drilon was launched.

Meanwhile, reports about indiscriminate cutting of mature mangroves along the Iloilo River banks, illegal fishing contraptions like motorized hudhod , unrestricted disposal of wastes, pollutant chemicals, and others kept on coming and had also been reported to the concerned government agencies.

Also, in 1993, the DENR bared the long-awaited list of illegal structures at the Iloilo River erected as early as the 1950's without proper government permits. Ten of those were found to have no permits, seven of them were residential structures, while the remaining three were commercial ones.

Something could have been done about the presence of these illegal structures but the government remained lenient on the matter. There were no legal measures taken to ensure that they complied with the requirements and not a formal case was filed before the court against illegal occupants.

The distress that Iloilo River was undergoing remained unrelenting in the succeeding years and culminated in 1999 when incidents of fish kills took place at the river. In that year, almost two metric tons of fish were instantly killed. These incidents of fish kills confirmed the presence and extent of the pollution in the Iloilo River.

Another factor that has contributed to the deterioration of the Iloilo River is the fish pens or fish corrals. As early as the Spanish period, there were already fish corrals in the Iloilo River. Through time, the number of fish pens built along the course of the river also increased. The existence of these fish traps eventually caused problems related to the deterioration of the Iloilo River.

It can be recalled that in the late 1980's up to the mid 1990's, fish corrals were not only built in Iloilo River but also became “the river itself”. They occupied much of the river waterways rendering it impassable even for a small baroto . One must bear in mind that fish corrals can cause or contribute to the occurrence of flash floods, sedimentation of the riverbed, and the overflowing of the riverbanks. Flooding can also have pronounced impacts on the ecology of the river system. River morphology and marine species composition may change because flooding influences the dissolved oxygen concentration, the nature of substrates, and the availability of food for aquatic organisms.

Despite the persistent demands of some concerned groups for the fish pens to be dismantled, it was not until 1996 that the city government of Iloilo was able to muster enough will to take them down. It was also at the same time that the Iloilo River Development program of then Justice Secretary Drilon was launched. The said program was created to preserve the Iloilo River and, of course, the Iloilo harbor, and that is implementation involved several agencies like the DENR and DPWH and, naturally, the city government. This was/is the program that the people hoped will eventually redound to the renewal of the Iloilo River and the Iloilo harbor, making them instrumental in the drive of Iloilo City towards greatness again.