Manila Bay is becoming a beachfront site complete with white sand and palm trees after the Philippines’ Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has began planting mature coconut palm trees on the Roxas Boulevard site.
The Baywalk beach site is part of another phase in the rehabilitation of the Manila Bay in the capital and came about in the wake of the controversial Php389-million project that witnessed dumping of crushed dolomite on part of the bay’s shore to create an artificial beach.
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While the Government had then stated that this was part of efforts to beautify the bay and help improve Filipinos’ mental health during the pandemic, the project came in for criticism as being wasteful — with hundreds of millions being spent on the project in the middle of a crippling health crisis.
While a ceremonial planting of 10 palm trees was done on June 16, this site had coconut trees earlier though many were already cut or died with the passing of time, Cimatu said while highlighting old pictures showing coconut palms lining Roxas Boulevard.
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Undertaking coconut plantation presently as part of the restoration and continuing rehabilitation of Manila Bay, Cimatu’s agency also recently added boulders to the so-called dolomite beach, while noting that the trees added to the aesthetic value of the area by “giving an otherwise plain landscape a distinctly tropical aura that was in this area years ago.” (AW)
