WHEREAS, it is good that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Local Water Utilities Administration are now looking seriously at the Manila Bay cleanup project costing Three Billion and Eight Hundred Million Pesos (P3,800,000,000.00);

WHEREAS, the abovementioned cost is close to the estimate given some years ago by the Manila Water and Sewerage System for a sewage treatment facility that could address ninety percent (90%) of bay pollution;

WHEREAS, President Fidel V. Ramos created a Pasig River Rehabilitation Committee;

WHEREAS, the Supreme Court has ordered the Manila Bay cleanup;

NOW THEREFORE I, GLORIA M. ARROYO, President of the Philippines, by the powers vested in me by law, do hereby order:

Section 1. - There is hereby created a Task Force on the Manila Bay Cleanup under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to fast-track the bay cleanup project, similar to the Pasig River Rehabilitation Committee, so that it could be bid out before June 2010.

Section 2. - The Philippine Gaming Corporation shall take the project on as part of its project to build a waterfront leisure center, so that the bay cleanup project does not have to get funding from the General Appropriations Act.

Section 3. - This order shall take effect immediately.

DONE in Manila on the 25th day of August in the Year of Our Lord, Two Thousand and Nine.

	(Sgd.) GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO
By the President:
(Sgd.) EDUARDO R. ERMITA
Executive Secretary