Comprehension: Reviving the Philippine Capital's Polluted Heart

A toxic black river that cuts through Manila is being cleaned up at a cost of more than 240 million dollars a year. 

Watch the video below and answer the following questions. Are they True or False?

1. The Pasig river has nothing living in it.

a. True

b. False

2. This is the first attempt to clean up the river.

a. True

b. False

3.Experts say it will take a decade for the river and its tributaries to be revived.

a. True

b. False

For transcript and answers see below: 

Transcript and Answers

It may look like fun and games but these children are playing in some of the most polluted waters in the Philippines. Once the social and economic heart of the nation's capital, the Pasig River is now biologically dead.  Much of Manila's industrial waste ends up here – along with untreated sewage and rubbish of the millions living close by. 

"There have been people who have gone into this with an open wound and died, literally. Whoever planned the city years ago really saw the esteros and the river as dumping grounds." 

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in failed attempts to clean up the river. The latest effort involves trying to relocate about 300,000 slum dwellers living directly along the river and its tributaries, known locally as esteros. 

"As long as there are illegal dwellers living along the estero, using the place as their toilets and dumping garbage there, there’s no clean-up that can happen. So that's the beginning." 

The project’s showing some early signs of success. A few years ago this estero was one of the city's most polluted, choked by squatters living in shanties. Thousands of people living within three metres of the waterway have been relocated. Boardwalks and plants have replaced their ramshackle homes.

"We are happy living here now. It's like living in a sub-division. When you wake up it is breezy, and there is a sunset, so you really feel like you are in a beautiful sub-division." 

Nevertheless, even these waters remain dangerously polluted. Experts say it will likely take decades for the Pasig River and all its forty-seven tributaries to be revived. 

Answers:

1. a

2. b

3. b

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