The Batangas Bay Experience

Way back 1996, as a member then of the Provincial Board of Batangas, we authored an Ordinance creating the Batangas Bay Region Environmental Protection Council. We thought of creating that Council when we realized just how many Government agencies were somehow directly or indirectly involved in the enforcement of laws pertaining to the unique ecosystem of Batangas Bay.

Consider this: we had the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Philippine Navy, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Maritime Industry Authority, the then Export Processing Zone Authority now Philippine Economic Zone Authority, the Provincial Government, the City Government of Batangas, and the Municipal Governments of Bauan, San Pascual and Tingloy.

Honestly, our sole purpose then was to pass an Ordinance that would create a body that would somehow convince these government agencies to sit down together and talk about Batangas Bay. There is an ulterior motive though and that is by bringing them together, the sustainable development of Batangas Bay may be, even parenthetically, discussed. That would be an achievement.

Meet they did at least four times a year from then on. Eventually, the council became part of the programs of the UNDP and PEMSEA for Batangas Bay.

Fast forward to 2005 and Dr. Kent Carpenter and Victor Springer and their finding that Batangas Bay is the center of the center of Marine biodiversity with the richest concentration of marine life in the entire planet. It has long been known that the Philippines belongs to an ocean region that has the most marine life but it was only after Carpenter and Springer published their study that the significance of Batangas Bay to the world of marine biology became evident.

We never knew this in 1995 when we started the move to pass the Ordinance. Somehow, mother earth managed to have its way and the law that would help in protecting our beloved bay came to be.