An Australian environmental activist and entrepreneur who cleaned up what he described as the “dirtiest river” he has seen changed his course and tagged Taguig instead of Pateros.
Mike Smith, founder of Zero Co., led the cleanup for 10 days of what he said was a river located in Pateros, an adjacent municipality of Taguig.
Last March 2, Smith posted on Facebook about the river cleanup he led and tagged it as located in Pateros.
“The Pateros in Manila (Philippines) is the dirtiest river I’ve ever seen. Over the last week together with @zeroco.com.au and @thehiddenseawine we removed every single piece of rubbish,” he wrote.
Mike Smith's original post tagged the "dirtiest river" to be located in Pateros (Screenshot from Smith's Facebook post)
Mike Smith cleaning up the "dirtiest river" (Screenshots from Smith's Instagram video)
However, Smith drew flak from the Pateros municipal government and Pateros Mayor Miguel Ponce III for wrongly identifying the river as located in the municipality.
Ponce told Manila Bulletin that the “dirtiest river” that Smith cleaned up is located in Barangay Rizal, which is now under Taguig and formerly under the supervision of Makati.
The river is called the Taguig-Pateros river but the area that Smith cleaned up is part of Taguig.
“Ang totoo, ang nilinis nila ay sa lugar ng Barangay Rizal na dating Makati na ngayon ay sakop na ang Taguig (The truth is, what they cleaned up was an area in Barangay Rizal which was formerly part of Makati and now under Taguig),” Ponce clarified.
Ponce criticized Smith for his irresponsible statements.
“Sana yung mga iresponsableng statement ive-verify muna (I hope these irresponsible statements should be verified first),” said the mayor.
In a new post on Facebook on March 29, Smith changed the location to Taguig from Pateros, and thanked Taguig volunteers for helping in the cleanup of the river.
Smith's March 29 put his location in Taguig (Screenshot from Smith's Facebook post)
“Thank you to everyone involved in this project:
“Zero Co customers who buy our zero waste products and fund these initiatives.
“The Hidden Sea who collect 1 water bottle for every wine sold
“Lyka Pet Food who recently joined us as a cleanup partner
“And of course, all the amazing local Filipinos involved:
“- [Taguig] Lake and River Management Office (LRMO)
“- CENRO [City Environment and Natural Resources office] Taguig
“- [Taguig] Facilities Management Office (FMO)
“- DENR-NCR MEO WEST Estero Rangers and MEO-SOUTH
“Together we can untrash the planet.”