Affiliates
Contact Us
Century International Hotels
TravelSmart.NET

PHILIPPINES
HONG KONG
CANADA
EUROPE
USA
INDONESIA
SINGAPORE
THAILAND


THE WEBSITE
Philippines

Resuscitating San Fernando River
Source: Manila Bulletin
Author: By A. S. H. Lacson
Date: 2004-11-23
 
It was an idea shared by the idealistic Atenean with the Yale Ivy Leaguer: The Hydraulic Society whose structure and institutions are shaped by the compulsive need to tap, distribute, and utilize water sources for sustenance, irrigation, and transportation. In fact, democratic institutions clustered around life-giving sources of water that provided not only irrigation but also arteries of commerce and communication, stimulating urbanization.



It is on this account that Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez here is seriously working for the resuscitation of the deadened San Fernando River. It is also for this same reason that Rodriguez through the city government he heads launched recently the San Fernando River Rehabilitation Project which, from all indications, brought about some semblance of seriousness in citizen efforts geared towards its rehabilitation and revival.



The mayor, along this score, together with leaders of the private sector, rowed away in what was labeled an inspection tour of the San Fernando River.



The group traveled to Sta. Lucia and checked on the status of the river’s water and waste content. The touring platoon eventually rode a dredging amphibian with the end in view of focusing clearly on the action and novel adventure concomitant to it. Consequent thereto, official inspection commenced in pinpointed sites: Barangays San Juan, San Jose and Del Pilar.



It is such a sorry note that from its former glory as the main transportation artery of the old town of San Fernando to Manila, the river is now marsh black, unwholesomely flavored by garbage and chemical waste defecated by fence-sitting residents, unconcerned citizens and obviously non-environmentalists.



According to Sedfrey Ordoñez, one-time Justice Secretary to former President Corazon C. Aquino and a considerable literary zealot, time was when his forebears sold merchandise in the entire breadth of what is now Central Luzon. He said that they peddled their wares in cascoes or cargo boats; however, those were the days when streams, creeks and rivulets were still alive; where once fish was in abundance. Today, water lilies camouflage the bluish-black riverbed that emits out nauseating odor.



The same went for the Makabulos clan of La Paz, Tarlac. We refer, of course, to the family of the great Biak-na-Bato general Francisco Makabulos after which Camp Makabulos in Tarlac was named. Originally from Lubao, Pampanga, the Makabuloses were known traders or viajeros plying the pueblos and other communities along the Rio Grande de Pampanga and its many tributaries in their cascoes filled with goods, either for barter or for sale.



Many of such waterways, including the San Fernando River that had silted through the years, were also visible on the maps engraved by Nicolas Bagay and others in the 18th century.



It is for this reason that Mayor Rodriguez is now at the thick of a project that calls for the resuscitation of the San Fernando River. Eventually it would be beautified. The culmination is its navigational activation.



Why not? Although it is not anything like the Seine or Thames rivers, turn of the century and 19th century accounts of river trade, transportation and commerce abound with much life and gusto. Navigable rivers are natural highways and since their valleys are generally fertile they afford routes through densely populated areas.



As for the San Fernando River, that is a clear understatement. Not only is the surrounding land fertile: It is now a settlement of prosperous businessmen, professionals, artisans and guilders. Further studies have to be made, indeed, with regards to the river of Fernandinos. It won’t take long though, Rodriguez spoke with certitude, when his native waterway becomes a tourist attraction.



 

Indonesia Thailand USA Europe Canada Hong Kong Philippines