UNSAFE WATER

A number of persons, including children, are spotted swimming in the public beach of Marigondon, Lapu-Lapu City on Sunday, March 27, 2018.

EMB FINDING ON MACTAN ISLAND

The Enviroment Management Bureau (EMB) finds that the fecal coliform levels in the water of Mactan Island and of Panglao Island in Bohol exceed safe standard

If you think that swimming in the beaches and open sea of Mactan Island is the best way to cool off from the summer heat, then think again.

The Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) central office in Manila, an agency attached to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), recently stressed that swimming is unsafe in the waters off Mactan Island in Cebu province, and Panglao Island in Bohol province — two of the top tourist destinations in the Visayas —as the fecal coliform levels found in the bodies of water surrounding these islands exceed the standard they set.

The seas off the islands of Mactan and Panglao were among the 60 percent of the country’s recreational waters where the fecal bacteria exceeded safe levels, according to the EMB report that was released by GMA News Online on Friday.

GMA News Online quoted the EMB as saying that none of the samples taken from the EMB’s 26 monitoring water stations in Central Visayas passed the safe standard.

Among these samples were those taken from beaches around the islands of Mactan and Panglao.

“Galing ‘to (fecal coliform) sa warm-bodied animals. ‘Yung dumi nila. So pag mataas ito, tumataas ang fecal coliform ng water body. Ibig sabihin, they are directly discharging itong mga duming tao derecho sa tubig,” Department of Environment and Natural Resources Undersecretary Jonas Leones was quoted as saying in the report. (Fecal coliform comes from warm-bodied animals, particularly their feces. So if there are more feces, the fecal coliform in the waters also increases. It means that [aside from animal feces], there are people who directly discharged feces into the waters).

“Pag nainom ito ng mga taong naliligo du’n, maaari silang magkaroon ng problema sa tiyan. ’Yung kanyang skin, baka magkaroon ng kati-kati. (If people bathing in the sea drink the water contaminated by fecal bacteria, they can have stomach problems. They will also develop skin problems),” Leones emphasized.

The fecal coliform level in the waters of Mactan, the EMB said, reached between 107.96 and 5,777.5 most probable number (mpn) per 100 milliliter (ml) or higher than the standard of 100 MPN per 100 ml.

Cebu Daily News tried but failed to reach EMB-Central Visayas Director William Cuñado on the phone on Sunday.

In an earlier interview, however, Cuñado said it was still safe for people to swim in the waters off the islands of Mactan and Panglao despite the presence of fecal coliform.

Not all

Sought for comment on Sunday, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza admitted that there are “some” areas in the city where the contamination level of fecal coliform exceeded the standards set by the EMB.

Among these places, she revealed, are public beaches located in Barangays Marigondon, Maribago, Punta Engaño, and Mactan.

Radaza, however, noted that other beaches in Lapu-Lapu, especially those owned by private entities are still safe for bathing.

“We are dealing with tourists who swim and dive in our beaches so we made sure the sea waters are clean because we don’t want them to get sick. All we want is for them to enjoy,” she told Cebu Daily News over the phone.

Radaza said the City Health Department and the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) have been monitoring the sea water in Lapu-Lapu City by getting samples twice a month to determine whether fecal coliform levels have increased or decreased.

She said the hotels and resorts located in coastal areas are also conducting their own monitoring on fecal contamination in their sea water.

Demolition

Early this month, the Lapu-Lapu City government also carried out Radaza’s orders to demolish all houses built within the three-meter shoreline easement.

According to Radaza, the city government will not provide a relocation site to the coastal settlers but will be willing to grant housing materials and financial assistance to the affected households.

Aside from the shanties, the city government also tore down structures for piggeries near the sea.

“We already asked Cenro to monitor these structures and make sure that they would not operate again,” Radaza said.

In the data released by EMB-DENR to GMA News Online, it said that in their 2017 study, “only 40 percent of public beaches passed the safety standard” stated in the report.

The EMB also revealed that more than 2,000 beaches in the country showed a considerably “high level” of the bacteria.

Validate findings

Carlo Anton Suarez, president of the Hotels, Resorts, and Restaurants Association of Cebu (HRRAC), expressed concerns over the EMB’s report, especially concerning the sea water off Mactan island.

“This news is bothering specially for our tourist market. We hope for a second validation to confirm the status of our water and to what extent it can affect us,” he told Cebu Daily News in an interview through Facebook messenger on Sunday.

Suarez called on the EMB to recommend solutions to the problem in order to protect everyone who bathes in Mactan’s sea.

He said the HRRAC will coordinate with the DENR-EMB and the Lapu-Lapu City government in order to address the issue.

“I know the DENR-7 and the local government of Lapu-Lapu is on top of this situation and they are looking for the cause and how to fix it,” Suarez said.