Observing a city gradually fill itself in causes a certain kind of grief. There was no abrupt catastrophe or dramatic collapse, just concrete slowly moving year by year into what was once open water. Even if they are unable to identify it, anyone who has driven along Roxas Boulevard in the last ten years has most likely experienced it. There is still the bay. However, it feels more like it’s about to vanish than it ever has.
Felino “Jun” Palafox Jr., an architect, has been stating this for years, and he is far more accurate than most. Palafox, one of the most well-known urban planners in the Philippines, has spent decades charting the effects of careless development on Metro Manila, including traffic, flooding, and the disappearance of green spaces. His concerns regarding the reclamation of Manila Bay are not new. The new thing is how hard it is now to ignore them.
Reclamation itself is not the main issue. Palafox has repeatedly stated in public that land reclamation can be successful, citing Singapore, Dubai, and the Netherlands as examples of locations where it was carried out with thorough environmental research and sincere long-term planning. His stance has always been conditional: if done correctly, with social acceptability studies, environmental impact assessments, and an open discussion of what gets displaced, it is acceptable. He believes that Metro Manila is not doing it correctly, which is the issue.
The cumulative effect of numerous reclamation projects taking place concurrently around Manila Bay, each approved in relative isolation, each promising economic growth, and each adding more surface area that obstructs the natural path floodwaters need to drain, is what worries Palafox and many environmental organizations. Reclamation does not lessen flooding, and in a number of documented cases, it exacerbates the situation by blocking the flow of water toward the bay, according to the DENR. However, the projects continue to advance.
Rest is one aspect of this argument that isn’t given enough attention. Not rest in the sense of policy pauses, but rest in the sense of people sitting, breathing, and living in a city that hardly ever slows down. In comparison to its population, Metro Manila has very little public open space. Despite its flaws and frequent crowding, the baywalk serves as one of the few locations where regular Filipinos can spend time by the water without having to pay for it.
When private developments and mixed-use towers replace the bay’s edge on reclaimed land, those unofficial rest stops—places people find on their own without being directed there—tend to vanish in silence. No announcement. No substitute was provided.
Palafox’s more general approach to urban planning has always been based on what planners refer to as a “ridge-to-reef approach,” which views cities as ecosystems with interconnected mountains, rivers, wetlands, and coastlines rather than discrete issues that should be handled separately. In ways that don’t always become apparent right away, reclamation breaks that chain. Sometimes it takes a particularly severe monsoon, a typhoon season, or an unexpectedly flooded road. There have been many of those in Manila lately.
You still have time to do this correctly, or at least less incorrectly. Over the years, Palafox and others have presented comprehensive recommendations, including updated drainage standards, real public consultations that go beyond procedural checkboxes, and appropriate environmental impact assessments before any ground is broken. The decisions being made in permit offices and city council chambers, primarily behind closed doors, will determine whether or not those recommendations gain any traction. It’s difficult not to feel that most people are unaware of how limited the window for course correction is. The bay continues to shrink. The population of the city continues to grow. And there aren’t many spots left to just stand and breathe.
