Dredge Laguna de Bay

Latest reports show that the siltation in the Laguna de Bay is simply terrible and out of control. It now has an average depth of only 2.5meters or about 8 feet.

The Shallow Lake

The oft interviewed architect and urban-planner Felino Palafox has also called for the dredging of the Philippine's biggest lake. Now, Mr. Palafox has many great ideas: he's the guy pushing for the amendment of the building code; advocating the building of more suitable structures in typhoon and earthquake prone areas. But nowhere have I seen or heard of his ideas being implemented in any scale.

Felino Palafox

Back to Laguna de Bay.

Since government is unwilling to do the dredging, it is up to the private sector to do the work. So there needs to be something in it for the private sector.

My idea is that the silt in the lake has to be good for something. Now a certain Mr. Emmanuel“Manny” Alkuino has come up with a way to turn silt into bricks. This is a very environmentally friendly solution. It can make someone rich and Filipinos will have strong sound building materials with which to build their hovels.

Gawad Kalinga Project

This could be your house

Check out this cool video

These bricks are really innovative since they are made using a mixture of silt and rice hull ash, as opposed to the usual clay, slate or fly ash.  This is an environmentally friendly solution since rice hulls are basically by products of rice milling and silt would just otherwise clog our waterways, or create a mess of our houses during a flood.

Apparently, these bricks have been in use for decades already in Bukidnon. I wonder why they haven't caught on yet in the other parts of the Philippines.

Here's the former Vice President Noli de Castro laying a brick.

Under this program the benefits are:

1. No more flash-floods.
2. An entrepreneur/s will get rich.
3. Some workers will get jobs.
4. Buildings can be built more cheaply.
5. Everyone will be happy.

We just need a very enterprising person/company willing to undertake this.

I'd do it myself but I'm still saving my money for the venture, and this may take a while.

Will this be the fruit of Laguna Lake dredging?

Update and Correction (June 29, 2014):

My research was a little off.  Apparently, a project to dredge Laguna de Bay has been in the works during the previous administration (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo 2001-2010) and which was scheduled to take place sometime 2010.  The project was to be undertaken by a Belgian contractor which specializes in dredging projects.  Unfortunately, the current administration (without any good reason, I might add) axed the project and now we face an international suit from the Belgians over this.  Read more about it here.  This is just a little disheartening because this project should have been a priority of the current administration, and all the groundwork had been laid down and all that the President had to do was sit and watch.  It is also disheartening because, just like the German company Fraport AG in the NAIA 3 project whose contract was declared null and void, Filipinos just seem to have trouble fulfilling their contractual commitments--this is simply not the mark of a progressive country.