How Pasig River Bring Back-to-life | Once Tagged as Most Polluted River to Become a Tourist Spot

From the success of Boracay Rehabilitation in 2018, and Manila Bay Rehabilitation in 2019. The Philippine Government once again opened a new tourist spot, that succumbed to environmental degradation. The overly polluted river system in Metro Manila was once tagged as the country’s most polluted water system in the 1990s.
The Pasig River Rehabilitation reached a new level of success story, from reviving its biological life in its network of creeks and rivers, and winning the 2018 Asian RiverPrize award, to becoming - - the newest tourist spot in the metro.
The rehabilitation of the Pasig River may finally be realized under the administration after many similar efforts in the past. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. promised his administration's urban project to revitalize Pasig River would be a people-centered and community-driven development.
Marcos made the statement as he led the inauguration of the 500-meter showcase area of the Pasig River Urban Development project in Binondo Manila, behind the gutted Manila Central Post Office. The newly constructed segment will serve as a public park consisting of a pedestrian-friendly walkway on a concrete platform equipped with a water fountain accented by lighting, and sitting areas that can also serve as an open-air venue for events.
The project follows Marcos' Executive Order No. 35 issued in July 2023 creating an inter-agency council that facilitates the rehabilitation of the Pasig riverbanks and water system.
The Philippine Government through the Department of Housing and Urban Development is eyeing to build a 50-kilometer promenade spanning both sides of the Pasig River in three years, funded through public-private partnership. The total cost for constructing the promenade is pegged at around ₱18 billion.
Recreational and wellness amenities such as public parks and jogging and bike paths will also be constructed in key areas along the 27-kilometer stretch of the river, which traverses 11 cities in the metropolis. The area will become a permanent exhibit area of green technology that works from solar lights to rain harvesting facilities - sustainable practices like urban gardens. This will also want to maximize the ready-to-use maritime highway by deploying more ferry boats and stations.
The Pasig River system is a strategic and environmentally endangered waterway. Winding through the most densely populated areas in the country’s National Capital Region, the river links Manila Bay in the west with Laguna Lake in the east.
However, the Philippines’ 27-kilometer Pasig River, and its vanishing networks of creeks and rivers, tell a captivating story, of a river system that refuses to die.
After years of uncontrolled urbanization and heavy industrialization on its riverbanks, the Pasig River lost its importance, as a vital waterway and has become the subject of many efforts for rehabilitation, and preservation. When it was declared biologically dead in the 1990’s.
Several river restoration initiatives began as early as the 1970’s but no visible result has been delivered. In 1999, the government created the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, to spearhead and harmonize the multi-faceted, and comprehensive rehabilitation of the Pasig River, through collaboration with its stakeholders.
The urban river management for Pasig River will expand its restoration effort by creating the comprehensive Pasig River Urban Development project. To become more spatially coherent, to accommodate multi-scale solutions, and to ensure land-based development performance is at par with environmental quality requisites.
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