AS of Thursday, February 17, according to the government’s official news agency, Malacaang had already informed Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu that the resignation he had submitted a few days earlier had already been accepted “effective immediately.” Yet on Saturday, February 19, here Cimatu still was, issuing a statement to announce another bizarre idea of the sort that, rightly or not, has come to characterize the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) under his tenure.
In partnership with the Department of National Defense (DND), Cimatu said, the DENR was going to build a replica of one of the 14-inch gun emplacements of Fort Drum along the Manila Baywalk near Remedios Street. Fort Drum, of course, is the famous “concrete battleship” built over what was once El Fraile Island off the coast of Ternate, Cavite, guarding the southern edge of Manila Bay.
“DENR and DND will construct a replica of a Fort Drum Island cannon near Manila’s Remedios drainage outfall to serve as a physical reminder of the [DENR’s] commitment and willpower in our battle to rehabilitate Manila Bay,” Cimatu said. “This landmark shall depict the three battles in Manila Bay the Spanish-American War, Japanese-American War, and now, the modern Battle for Manila Bay.”
Oh, for God’s sake. What kind of non sequitur nonsense is that?
Fort Drum was built over a five-year period from 1909 to 1914 by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and was named for a former US Adjutant General who had served in the Mexican War and Civil War, and died just as construction was getting under way. The idea for the fort came from the brief and ineffective use of El Fraile Island as a gun platform by Spanish forces on the night of April 30, 1898, when US Commodore George Dewey’s naval squadron sailed into Manila Bay.
Already outdated by the time it was built, Fort Drum nevertheless saw significant action in the last stages of the Japanese campaign to capture Manila, firing on Corregidor and Japanese transports in the bay. It was surrendered to the Japanese, who manned it with a small garrison and a few guns (the big turreted batteries had been wrecked by the Americans before they gave up), but played no role in any other fighting in the war until April 13, 1945. A detachment of US Marines was able to land on the fort, and rather than fight their way inside, decided on the gruesome expedient of dumping several hundred gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline down the air shafts and setting it alight, incinerating the 68 Japanese soldiers inside. Except for the Coast Guard installing an automated navigation light on the fort’s top about 20 years ago and occasional visits from scavengers, the landmark which is technically a war grave that should be left alone has been abandoned since its last action 77 years ago.
What any of that has to do with the effort to clean up Manila Bay is a mystery to anyone who isn’t Roy Cimatu. The history of the fortification is unique and worth preserving, but its utility as a symbol of success is rather dubious. As El Fraile Island, the scratch Spanish fortification of three small-caliber cannons attracted the US squadron’s for all of about 20 minutes before being simply ignored. During the “Japanese-American” War (I would think the Chinese, Indians, Burmese, Malaysians, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Dutch, Australians and British would all like a word with you about calling it that, Mr. Cimatu), as Fort Drum, it was first bravely surrendered by the Americans, and then as whatever the Japanese called it, turned into a crematorium.
Given that the news about yet another large, unnecessary, and out-of-scope cosmetic expenditure by the DENR reached the public on the very same day as a statement by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd that “the country may need to raise taxes to cover Covid-19 loans,” the idea met with much less enthusiasm than Cimatu likely anticipated.
One of the frustrating things about the Philippine government is that it is an all-too-common practice for agencies at various levels to put a great deal of effort and resources into marketing the fact that they are doing the job they should be minimally expected to do. The complex project to clean up Manila Bay, which is spearheaded by the DENR and the Department of the Interior and Local Government, with the participation of a dozen or so other agencies, is progressing very well, as a matter of fact, and it should be. That is precisely the sort of work that DENR exists to do in the first place.
But rather than let the results speak for themselves, and let the improvement in everyday quality of life convince the people that their expectations for “functioning, effective government” are indeed being satisfactorily met, the DENR under Cimatu perhaps driven by a diffidence borne of his holding for four-and-a-half years a job for which he has no real professional qualifications has felt compelled to make a show of it. Which, as we have seen, apparently involves the DENR moonlighting as the Department of Tourism.
Aesthetic improvements are not automatically bad. There is nothing wrong with the DENR’s other cosmetic idea, the “dolomite beach,” except its timing; it is a large, noncritical expenditure that should not have come ahead of the completion of the bay rehabilitation project that it does not substantially contribute to in any way, and especially not during a period when any government expenditure must be carefully rationalized against other, obviously more vital priorities. The same is true of the proposed “Fort Drum monument.” It’s an interesting and different idea, and would be pleasing if it was added at the appropriate time. Adding it at the wrong time, however, as an attempt to demonstrate to the people that the DENR is doing its job, simply backfires and instead, gives the impression that it is not.
[email protected]
Twitter: @benkritz
