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The City of Baguio was planned for 25, 000 persons.
Now, its data in population goes up to hundreds of thousands.
We all want to have a piece of the city, and the neighboring town of La Trinidad --
And we state our claims on every available space.
The streams and rivers are not spared.
Houses would be away from the bank of the river.
There's a three meters easement
but the houses are already over the creek,
so we cannot prevent houses from throwing garbage to the river.
Despite the prohibitions, we also throw our garbage into the river.
I remember it changed
when there was this calamity that happened on part along the river.
There were houses that fell
with people that drowned and swept by the current.
and I think one of the effect was some of the people who died drowned because it was in the middle of the night
were fished out here in this portion.
There were kids watching, and it made us think
that there is nothing,
it seems that the freshness and everything also changed,
and ultimately with all these.
Based on the studies of our BS Environmental Science students
who have been making researches on the river,
the river is really polluted.
We can see all the plastics that are placed over there.
The river is not clear, the water is very murky.
The river has undergone siltation
not only in this area where I am but in many other parts of the river
which has made the river very constricted.
Now the total suspended solids which are the parameters,
are the ones being measured, these are the dirts being swept by the current.
These are coming from constructions, let's say diggings, slides.
If heavy rainfall would come this would measure the increase
in the discharge of the total suspended solids.
Base from the results of the analysis
of what we are saying as heavy metals,
these are the following: lead, mercury, and cadmium
and it shows that
we can get traces of heavy metals.
In view of the BOD,
this refers to the air used up by bacteria in cleaning the river.
Because there are bacteria that eat up dirt.
BOD shows the amount of air used up by the bacteria in eating up the dirt which we call BOD.
This is one of the measures and we can see that it has a very high level.
It means to say that the bacteria are consuming too much oxygen in the water for them to clean the river.
Now, the BOD is supposed to be less than 5mg per liter but the analysis shows this too high.
But what are these pollution that is being measured?
These are coming from the househoulds more or less sewage, coming from the septic tanks, and kitchen wastes.
These are the contributory factors that can be measured in the BOD.
So we can say that Balili River is turning out to be a sewage system.
We don't realize that what we throw into the river,
has a way of coming back to us.
These salad vegetables are being watered by the Balili River.
The Balili River irrigates the farms and flowers of Bahong and other barangays of La Trinidad.
When we assumed office, it was our commitment
that we'll really do everything
within our authority to protect this river
and we're not talking about Bahong only,
we're talking of Alno, Alapang and Bahong,
the main sources of roses and
crysanthemums which are being sold back to Baguio
and all of which are being used during Panagbenga and all other activites that we have.
Some of them are directly sent to Manila,they go straight to Dangwa.
A farmer says they will fight anybody who will stop the flow of water into their farm.
The Balili River is converted into hydroelectric energy.
The agreement I think is 25 years
so we really had to sit down together
because we also had contributed to their business.
But these maintenance men say garbage often disturbs the generation of electricity.
Actions are now being done to save Balili.
This is a work of the DPWH and they're trying to riprap this part of the Balili River
so that it would at least become wider and prevents sediments
from affecting the river.
I was looking at the other building on the other side
and I saw...
somebody from that house throwing garbage directly into the river
and thought to myself, what is this.
There was something that struck me
that sometimes I want to throw something at that person and say stop it.
We give them seminars
and we give also verni to treat their animal waste.
We are also giving the biodigester gas if they want to use that,
we go barangay by barangay.
There is the STP or the Baguio Sewage Treatment Plant
to treat the waste coming from the Central Business District and other adjacent Barangays.
We have 120 barangays
and the total barangay that
are connected to the
STP are 65 barangays.
We see that some houses use the river for their water supply, for their kitchens, and others.
We have already told them, and are telling them.
There are some that have followed but there are also those who are hard-headed
And their are direct discharges
which means it should not pass through the septic tanks but should go straight to its path.
Their is also a monitoring done by Baguio and they have made and written laws that would help.
There is now on interagency coalition to save the Balili River.
The Balili River is a source of life.
We have the..
solid waste act which is 9003.
We have ordinances about this but we don't need to read that.
All we have to do is simply,
let us not throw our waste directly into Balili River
because Balili River is not made for waste water
treatment facility or a place where we can throw our waste.
There is always a venue for that, there's a place for that.
Let's save our life
We have what we call self-assessment here.
Am I a contributor to the wastes here?
If I am, what should I do?
I think everybody is guilty as far as this is concerned.
I frequently ask others if there are workshops or seminars on water quality.
Have you ever tried to look at your septic tank?
Have you ever thought about where the waste of your septic tank goes?
But, really, there's a need for us to protect the Balili River specifically
it's a source of life - any river is.
It really pains us to see other rivers that are dried up.
And, how about the next generation?
Let's save the Balili River.