Estero de Paco with led lightsEstero de Paco, a 2.9-kilometer tributary of the Pasig River, is now brighter with the City of Manila installing streetlights alongside the waterway.

ABS-CBN Foundation Inc. (AFI) managing director Gina Lopez and Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim led the inauguration of the lights on July 17, 2012.

“It’s symbolic,” said Lopez.

“It’s the advent of a transition from one phase to another, from something so bad to moving on to endless possibilities. It’s the promise of a brighter future— the lighting of Estero de Paco!”

Installed on an easement section between Pedro Gil and Quirino bridges, the streetlights inaugurated last month were the first LED lights ever to be put up in Manila. The city plans to add more streetlights in other parts of Estero de Paco. Lopez personally requested the lights from Mayor Lim as part of the continuous effort to make Estero de Paco a tourist attraction and a model for river rehabilitation.

AFI’s Kapit Bisig Para sa Ilog Pasig, in partnership with the Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, the City of Manila, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, the Department of Public Works and Highways, Manila Water, Maynilad and other government and private partners, began rehabilitating Estero de Paco in 2009.

The ongoing final phase of the program includes the rehabilitation of Paco Market’s wet section, putting coco coir for slope stabilization and planting of phytoremediation plants along the easement, setting up interceptor box sewer to catch household wastes and installing active island reactors to bring life back to the estero waters.

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