Lesson in 4 parts on TATAKalikasan, Ateneo de Manila University
87.9 FM Radyo Katipunan, every Thursday) 11 to 12 a.m., July 10, 2025
Let's Preserve our Marine Ecosystem
The Samal Bridge and the Writ of Kalikasan
Hosts: Fr JM Manzano SJ, Dr Abe V Rotor, Prof Emoy Rodolfo, AdMU and Prof Pauline Salvana Bautista
The Davao-Samal Bridge project summary
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Project Status:
Construction is ongoing and the project is reportedly on track for completion by 2027.
Legal Challenges:
There are ongoing legal challenges related to the project, including a petition for a Writ of Kalikasan, but these have not significantly disrupted the construction timeline.
Physical Accomplishment:
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has reported that the project has surpassed 12% in overall physical accomplishment.
Timeline:
The project is expected to be completed and operational by 2027.
Key Features:
The bridge is a 3.9-kilometer, four-lane cable-stayed bridge. It will reduce travel time between Samal and Davao City from 30 minutes via ferry to just 5 minutes. AI Overview
References and Review Articles
- Ecology's Dilemma Today
Coral Reef, counterpart of our forest on land
• It looks like man has been able to trace the source of the water that comes from the proverbial Pierian Spring, the secret of health and long life. For years it was believed that the spring lies up in Shangrila atop the Himalayas, or according to the Greeks on Mt. Olympus, or the Egyptians in the Pyramids. One does not have to go there now.
Even today the average life span of man is mid 70. It will not be a surprise if one out of a hundred individuals will be a centenarian. One report claims that the life span of man can be increased up to 140 years by the middle of the millennium. How long did Moses live?
• But cancer is on the rise, so with AIDS, and the spread of genetically linked defects and illness. Work-related and stress-related deaths will likewise increase with heart and severe depression as the leading diseases, followed by the traditional diseases like respiratory and diarrheal diseases. Already there are 15 million people who have died of AIDS and 40 millions more who are living with HIV, the viral infection. A pandemic potential with up to 1 billion people to become affected with HIV has started appearing on some crystal balls and this is not impossible if it hits populous Asia.
• Cloning, the most controversial discovery in biology and medicine, will continue to steal the limelight in this millennium, stirring conscience, ethics and religion. It is now sensed as the biggest threat to human society, and if Frankenstein is back and some people regard him as a hero instead of a villain, we can only imagine the imminent destruction our society faces - the emergence of sub- and ultra- human beings. On the other hand, there are those who look at cloning as an important tool of medicine to enable doctors to save lives and increase life expectancy. They also believe that cloning in situ (on site) will do away with tedious and unreliable organ transplants.
• Gene therapy is in, medicinal healing is out. It means diagnosing the potential disease before it strikes by knowing its source. Actually diseases are triggered by specific genes. Reading the gene map of an individual, the doctor can “cure” the disease right at it genetic source. We call this gene therapy, the newest field in medical science. But the altered gene will be passed on to the next generation. Playing God, isn’t? Definitely it is, and it is possible to use this technology not only for the sake of treatment but for programmed genetic alteration. Another Frankenstein in the offing? But scientists are saying gene therapy can be a tool in removing permanently the genes that cause cancer, AIDS, and genetically linked diseases like diabetes, Down’s Syndrome, and probably alcoholism.
• We are in an age of test tube babies. There are now 100,000 test tube babies in the US alone since 1978, the arrival of Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby. The industry has just started booming with sperm and ova banks established and linked with the Internet and other commodity channels. Not only childless couples can have children, but even a sixty year old woman can - through what is coined as menopausal childbirth technology. Surrogate mothers for hire, anyone?
• If diseases can be predicted and successfully treated, and life can be prolonged – these have indeed grave consequences to population increase. Already there are 7.7 billion people inhabiting the earth today, and we are increasing at the rate of more than 80 million a year. After 2150 we shall have reached 13 billion, the estimated maximum capacity our planet can support. Is Malthus right after all? It looks like the ghost of this English political economist and priest is back to warn us, this time more urgent than his 1789 prediction that our population would grow until it reaches the limits of our food supply.
• Our Earth is getting warmer, and this is not any kind of comfort but destruction. We have experienced seven of the ten warmest years in the past decade and we are heading toward another Noah’s episode. Low lying areas where the rich farmlands and many big cities virtually squat will be flooded. Heat is trapped by the carbon that we generate from our cars and industries creating a “greenhouse effect.” As the world’s temperature increases, the polar ice will melt, more rains and climatic disturbances will ensue. Climate scientists have predicted that by year 2100 the earth’s temperature will go up from 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade. But wait, the worst is yet to come. Global warming will plunge us ultimately – towards the middle of the millennium – into another ice age! There will be a buildup of ice at the polar regions as the ocean currents fail to carry warm water to the poles and back.
• The trend of lifestyle will be toward the simple and natural, even in the midst of high tech living. More and more people will go for natural food and natural medicine as they become conscious of their health. The media and the information highway will provide more people access to entertainment and information. Remote management and distance learning will greatly influence business and education. But people will still seek greener pastures in cities and in foreign lands.
• “Save the earth!” has yet to be a denominator of cooperation and peace among nations. The failure of the Earth Summit some years ago at Rio de Janairo, and the first summit before in Stockholm, has produced valuable lessons leaders must learn. There is only one ship in which all of us are riding. Let us all save our ship.
All in the name of Progress
It is all in the name of progress that nations are pursuing. The West insists of pushing the frontiers of technology into the so-called “third wave.” The East, the Asian Pacific region, insists on industrialization in order to catch up with the progress of the West, while the Middle East has yet to undergo a major socio-cultural and political transformation while aiming at lofty economic goals.
Progress, it is generally believed, is the aim of globalization, and globalization is building of a world village. Isn’t this the key to peace and cooperation? Sounds familiar to scholars and leaders.
Maybe, but the greatest challenge lies in the preservation of a healthy Mother Earth, a common denominator of concern irrespective of political, ideological and religious boundaries. It is the saving of the environment that will be the biggest challenge to this and the coming generations.
Poor Rating of Earth Summit
The recent Copenhagen Earth Summit renewed basically the agenda of previous summits. But demonstrators expressed pessimism over the sincerity of world leaders on environmental issues.
They had in mind what happened to the promises made by leaders from 178 nations who gathered in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro some years ago. These are the four areas of accord: biodiversity, climate, deforestation, and population.
On the biodiversity accord signed by 161 countries (except the US), ecosystems continue to be assaulted and fragmented. On arresting global warming as a result of emissions from industries and vehicles, developing countries on the path of industrialization have exacerbated the problem. Deforestation virtually knows no limits and bounds as long as there is wilderness to conquer. Every year forests are lost the size of Nepal. Asia has lost 95 percent of its woodlands.
There are now 7.7 billion people on earth. Every year about 85 million people are added. This is slightly bigger than the Philippines’ total population. Although birth rates are going down in the West as well as in the NICS, there is a boom in babies in rural Asia, Latin America and Africa.
What is the score of the Earth Summit? Rhetorics and promises can not be relied upon. It is in this area that globalization should be reviewed. Globalization should be defined in economic, cultural and environmental terms. This triad approach has yet to be addressed to all members of the global village. And there should be a new world governance, more credible than the UN, to undertake this gargantuan task.
Idyllic rural life. People tend to go and live in the city. Painting by the author.
• The trend of lifestyle will be toward the simple and natural, even in the midst of high tech living. More and more people will go for natural food and natural medicine as they become conscious of their health. The media and the information highway will provide more people access to entertainment and information. Remote management and distance learning will greatly influence business and education. But people will still seek greener pastures in cities and in foreign lands.
All in the name of Progress
It is all in the name of progress that nations are pursuing. The West insists of pushing the frontiers of technology into the so-called “third wave.” The East, the Asian Pacific region, insists on industrialization in order to catch up with the progress of the West, while the Middle East has yet to undergo a major socio-cultural and political transformation while aiming at lofty economic goals.
Progress, it is generally believed, is the aim of globalization, and globalization is building of a world village. Isn’t this the key to peace and cooperation? Sounds familiar to scholars and leaders.
Maybe, but the greatest challenge lies in the preservation of a healthy Mother Earth, a common denominator of concern irrespective of political, ideological and religious boundaries. It is the saving of the environment that will be the biggest challenge to this and the coming generations.
Poor Rating of Earth Summit
The recent Copenhagen Earth Summit renewed basically the agenda of previous summits. But demonstrators expressed pessimism over the sincerity of world leaders on environmental issues.
They had in mind what happened to the promises made by leaders from 178 nations who gathered in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro some years ago. These are the four areas of accord: biodiversity, climate, deforestation, and population.
On the biodiversity accord signed by 161 countries (except the US), ecosystems continue to be assaulted and fragmented. On arresting global warming as a result of emissions from industries and vehicles, developing countries on the path of industrialization have exacerbated the problem. Deforestation virtually knows no limits and bounds as long as there is wilderness to conquer. Every year forests are lost the size of Nepal. Asia has lost 95 percent of its woodlands.
There are now 7.7 billion people on earth. Every year about 85 million people are added. This is slightly bigger than the Philippines’ total population. Although birth rates are going down in the West as well as in the NICS, there is a boom in babies in rural Asia, Latin America and Africa.
What is the score of the Earth Summit? Rhetorics and promises can not be relied upon. It is in this area that globalization should be reviewed. Globalization should be defined in economic, cultural and environmental terms. This triad approach has yet to be addressed to all members of the global village. And there should be a new world governance, more credible than the UN, to undertake this gargantuan task.
Idyllic rural life. People tend to go and live in the city. Painting by the author. “Hundreds of millions of people will starve to death,” warned Paul Ehrlich in his book, The Population Bomb. This is an echo of the Malthusian Theory raised 250 years ago. This means farmers, in spite of biotechnology, can not keep up indefinitely with increasing food demands. Yet there is a great disparity in food distribution. While the average adult needs 2200 calories a day, an American consumes 3603 as compared to the intake of a Kenyan which is only 1991 calories.
Degradation of the land, the breaking up of ecosystems, are resulting to modern day exodus of ecomigrants who cross borders, invade cities and build marginal communities, threaten security of nations, and creates other socio-economic problems. Desertification, soil erosion, overuse of farms drive multitudes to search for greener pasture, many in the guise of overseas workers, settlers, refugees.
The birth of megacities is a human phenomenon in modern times. The world’s cities are bursting at the seams. Half of the world’s population live in urban areas today, and more are coming in. In developed countries 75 percent of their population live in cities. By year 2015, 27 of the world’s 33 largest cities will be found in Asia, with Mumbai and Shanghai bursting with 20 million each. Today the most populous city in the world is Tokyo with 27 million people. New York has 16.3 million which is about the same as Sao Paolo. Metro Manila has 10 million.
On global warming, figures show how the world fares under greenhouse effect. This phenomenon is attributed to the severity of the last three episodes of El Nino in the last three decades, and to the prevalence of deadly tornadoes, hurricane, floods and natural calamities.
A hole in the sky was caused by damaging chemicals that tear down the vital atmospheric ozone shield that keeps us from too much heat and radiation. The size of the ozone hole about the Antarctic region is estimated to be like the whole continental US – and is still expanding. CFC use is now restricted in most countries, but there are other damaging chemicals used by agriculture and industry. Methyl bromide for one is 40 times more destructive to ozone than CFC.
Indeed, this millennium is the deciding point whether we can save Mother Earth - or fail. Already a decade has passed, and the trend of destruction has even increased. If we fail it is also the doom of mankind and the living world. It is yet the greatest challenge to civilization. ~
Credit: Museum of Natural History UPLB, Marlo Rotor for the photo. and Wikipedia
Part 2 - Phycology: Seaweeds - Vegetables of the Sea
“Food of the gods.” This is what the ancient Greeks call a special kind of seaweed which the Chinese and Japanese call “food of the emperor.” And only members of the royalty have the exclusive right to partake of this food. It is Porphyra – nori to the Japanese, laver to the Europeans, and gamet to Ilocanos. Thus elevating the status of some 30 species of edible seaweeds to a premium class of food - sea vegetables.
The fact is seaweeds have a wide range of importance from food and medicine, to the manufacture of many industrial products. In nature, seaweeds together with corals and sea grasses, constitute the pasture and forest of the sea, a vast ecosystem, unique in its kind because it is the sanctuary of both marine and terrestrial life, and in the estuaries.
Lately however, we have intruded into this horizon, pushing agriculture beyond land towards the sea. We build fishponds, fish pens and cages, resorts, and we introduce poison from our wasteful living.
And yet we have barely discovered the many uses of seaweeds. Ironically we are indiscriminately and unwittingly destroying the very production base of this valuable resource before we have discovered its full potential – in the same way we are destroying the forest even if we have studied barely 10 percent of the potential value of its composition.
A happy note however, may be found in our success in cultivating seaweeds even before naturally occurring species and stands become exhausted. Seaweed farming has been established in coves and sheltered coral reefs such as in Danajon Reef between Cebu and Bohol, on flat coral beds in Calatagan in Batangas, Zamboanga and Tawi-tawi, to mention the most important plantations. Eucheuma PHOTO, the source of carageenan is the main crop, followed by Gracillaria, Gellidiella and other species as source of algin and agar.
These seaweeds built a multi-million dollar industry locally. Their extracts have revolutionized the food industry, mainly as conditioners in food manufacture. More and more products are derived from them for our everyday use, which other than in food, are used in the manufacture of medicine and drugs, cosmetics, fabrics, paints, films, to mention a few.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Unlike land plants, no seaweed has been found to be poisonous or pathologic. On the contrary seaweeds are rich in minerals and vitamins, which make them elixir of health. Only one species so far is known to cause dizziness when taken in excess - lato or Caulerpa. A substance responsible to this effect is caulerpin, which may be explored of its potential value in medicine as natural tranquilizer.
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Seaweeds, botanically speaking, are not true plants, but rather algae – giants among their counterpart in the micro-world such as the Chlorella and Spirogyra. Biologists have assigned seaweeds into classes based on their color or dominant pigment, hence green (Chlorophyta), brown (Phaeophyta) and red (Rhodophyta). In terms of niche, these three groupings grow naturally at varying depths - in increasing depth in this order. This is ecologically advantageous and definitely a tool in their evolutionary success.
Food Value of Seaweeds
Fishes that feed on seaweeds contain high levels of Vitamins A and D in their liver, apparently absorbed from the seaweeds. Algae also synthesize appreciable amounts of Vitamins B12, C and K. Another advantage they have over land plants is their rich content of iodine, bromine, potassium, and other chemicals that have been discovered recently, many of which have potential value to medicine and industry.
It is no wonder why people who take seaweeds as regular part of their diet are sturdier and healthier and seldom get sick of anemia, goiter and scurvy. It is an observation that the Ilocanos who are the country’s top consumers of seaweeds generally enjoy good health and long life.
The cultivation of other edible seaweeds now include Enteromorpha, Monostroma, Laminaria, Porphyra and Undaria. The importance of seaweed culture is fast expanding this century, principally for food. This is to show the food value of seaweeds using kelp as a model.
Kelp (Laminaria japonica) contains the following nutrients based on a 100-gram sample: Carotene, 0.57 mg; Thiamine, 0.09 mg; Riboflavin, 0.36 mg; Niacin, 1.60 mg; Protein 8.20 g; Fats, 0.10 g; Carbohydrates, 57 g; Coarse fiber (roughage), 9.80 g; Inorganic salts, 12.90 g; Calcium, 1.18 g; Iron, 0.15 g; and Phosphorus, 0.22g.
Philippine seaweeds which approximate the food value of Laminaria are Eucheuma, Gracillaria PHOTO and Gellidiella. On the other hand, gamet or Porphyra has the following food value. Based on a 100-gram sample, gamet contains protein, 35.6 g; fat, 0.7 g; carbohydrates, 44.3 g; provitamin, 44,500 IU; Vitamin C, 20 mg; Vitamin B1, 0.25 mg; Vitamin B2, 1.24 mg; and Niacin, 10 mg.
Seaweeds Sold in the Market
These seaweeds are commercially sold in Metro Manila, mainly in public markets and in talipapa.
1. Lato or Arusip [Caulerpa racemosa)(Forsk)L Agard], Chlorophyta
2. Guso (Eucheuma sp.), Rhodophyta
3. Gulaman (Gracillaria verrucosa), Rhodophyta
4. Kelp (Laminaria sp.), Phaeophyta
5. Gamet (Porphyra crispata Kjellman ), Rhodophyta
6. Kulot [Gelidiella acerosa (Forsk) Feldman ]
Lato or Caulerpa is of two commercial species, C. racemosa which is cultured in estuaries and fishponds and and C. lentillifera which is usually found growing in the wild. It is the racemosa type that predominates the market. Because of frequent harvesting of this species by local residents lentillifera it is no longer popular in the market. Besides, the cultured Caulerpa is cleaner and more uniform. It has lesser damage and is less pungent than its wild counterpart.
Guso or Eucheuma cotonii is cartilaginous and firm as compared with Caulerpa and because it is very much branched air can circulate better in between the fronds, which explains why its self life may extend up to 3 days. Guso is eaten in fresh state mixed with vegetables or cooked in water and sugar to make into sweets.
Gracillaria verrucosa and G. coronipifolia are the two common species of gulaman. The thallus is bushy with a firm fleshy texture. It is cylindrical and repeatedly divided into subdichotomous branches with numerous lateral proliferation. Gulaman grows up to 25 cm long and has a disclike base. It is found growing in protected, shallow waters.
Gamet or Pophyra crispata Kjellman has a deep red thallus which is flat and membranous with soft gelatinous fronds. Three to nine blades usually form clusters which grow from a very small adhesive disc which has tiny rhizoids attached to the rocky substratum. Gamet grows on rock promontories and rocks exposed directly to the action of waves and wind. This can be observed along the coast of Burgos, Ilocos Norte, which is the major producer of gamet. To date we have not succeeded in culturing gamet in spite of our knowledge on how nori, a species of Porphyra similar to our own gamet, is raised on marine farms in Japan and other parts of the world. The most authentic reason is because the natural habitat of Porphyra is temperate.
Why gamet grows along the northern most tip of Luzon is because the cold Kuroshu Current coming down from Japan reaches this point during the months of December to February. The current probably carries also the reproductive parts of the organisms, which explains the similarity of the Japanese and Philippine species.
Gamet is sold in dried form, compressed in mat, either circular with a diater of 20 to 30 cm, or rectangular in shape measuring some 50cm x 100 cm. Gamet is blanched with boiling water and allowed to cool before salad garnishings are added. It is also added to soup or diningding.
Kulot or Gelidiella acerosa (Forsk) Feldmann and Hamel has tough and wiry thalli, greenish black to dull purple in color. They lie low and creeping on rocks and corals along the intertidal zone. It is very much branched when mature with secondary branches cylindrical at the base and flattened towards the tip and beset on both sides with irregular, pinnately short branches. The fertile branchlets have conspicuous swollen tips.
Kelp or Laminaria is also found in the market. This is popular seaweed growing only in temperate seas. The main supplier is China. Kelp grows to several feet long and is usually thick and broad. It is sold in dried form or cut into strips and soaked in water and rehydrated.
As a source of nutrition and natural medicine, seaweeds are important in commerce and industry and as direct source of food of the people. On the point of ecology, protection of seaweeds in the wild, as well as their cultivation on reefs, farms and estuaries should be integrated under a sound management program of our coastal areas. Thus preserving God’s Eden under the Sea. ~
Reference: Rotor AV, Living with Nature in Our Times
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