Philippine First Lady praises UAE move on Pasig River

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

DUBAI: The Philippines’ First Lady Louise Marie “Liza” Araneta-Marcos on Wednesday highlighted what PPPs or private-public partnerships can achieve for a “meaningful change.”

The Philippine Delegation head at the “World Governments Summit 2025” in Madinat Jumeirah, lawyer Araneta-Marcos, specifically cited the PPP of the Philippines with the UAE-based Clean Rivers, a global non-profit organisation headquartered in Abu Dhabi, the mission of which is “to tackle plastic waste in river systems, preventing its flow into oceans and being the catalyst for sustainable circular economies that empower communities.”

“As I have always said, government cannot do it alone. You need to work closely with the private sector if you are going to make a meaningful change,” Araneta-Marcos stated at the “Special Address” she delivered at the “Collaborative Models for Development Forum,” one of the side sessions of the WGS.

To stress her point, the First Lady who also spoke about education and health, as well as the environment, announced that the Marcos Administration-Clean Rivers PPP had been formalised early in the day by way of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which she and Clean Rivers chairman Saeed Al Zaabi, witnessed.

Relative to this, Special Envoy to the UAE Ma. Anna Kathryn Yu-Pimentel, among the 13 other high-ranking officials from the Philippines, attending the gathering of world and thought leaders, had posted on Facebook about the MoU signing “between Clean Rivers and the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) represented by DENR Secretary Ma. Antonioa Yulo-Loyzaga.

She mentioned that with the MoU, $20 million (Dhs73,460,002.80/Php1,165,790,000.00) has been allocated by the UAE to fund ongoing restoration and beautification projects “for the Pasig River.”

Gulf Today learnt that the back story of the Philippines-UAE tie-up on the Pasig River rehabilitation, began when a Clean Rivers Team visited the country, among the nations worldwide grappling with plastics pollution at 356,000 metric tonnes annually in early Aug.2024. The team met with Pasig River Urban Development Project Inter-Agency Task Force and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority officials and the First Lady.

They were given a trip down the 25.2-kilometre body of water that runs through the cities of Manila, Mandaluyong, Makati, Pasig and Taguig in Metro Manila and the town of Taytay in Rizal Province, east of the National Capital Region.

The source of Pasig River is the ailing freshwater lake of Laguna de Bay surrounded by the Rizal and Laguna Provinces in southeastern Luzon. It flushes out to the Manila Bay.

“Unfortunately, no one really took care of the river and its environs. And over the years, it has become a site for sore eyes. It was polluted, dirty, stinking, every other adjective you could think of,” Araneta-Marcos saud in her speech.

She expressed her utmost gratitude to the UAE’s willingness to partner and collaborate with the Marcos Administration’s efforts to revive the river.

“Thanks for the assistance provided by the UAE, especially the Clean Rivers, which is an Earth Zion initiative. We just signed an MoU earlier. We will be able to clean our river and hopefully, make it a showcase much like the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok or the Seine in Paris.”

Wake up call for the Pasig River rehabilitation project began after the “Anak ng Pasig” (“Child of Pasig”) – composed and sang by singer-actress Geneva Cruz – won at the 1993 “Aliw Awards” as the “Song of the Year.”

The song was about how a child, born and raised at the riverbanks, realised by way of a discovered old photograph, that ages back, the blackish river was pristine and was abundant of marine life. The song urges everyone to care for the environment.

The initial dredging of the Pasig River was initiated by former First Lady Amelita “Ming” Ramos, wife of the late President Fidel V Ramos, a distant paternal uncle of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong” Marcos Jr.