The unseen toll of progress on the Verde Island Passage

How industrial projects harm the world's richest marine life

- By MAT T. RICHTER

Underwater shot of the Verde Island Passage (Photos by Boogs Rosales)

(Boogs Rosales)

In the Asia-Pacific region, a key ambition for the Philippines is to become a hub for liquefied natural gas (LNG). This fuel is marketed as a “better” alternative to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel driving climate change.

But this promise dimmed when a wave of LNG projects clustered in Batangas City beginning in 2023, drawn by what proponents described as “existing infrastructure networks and pipelines for natural gas,” said Gerry Arances, executive director of Center for Environment, Ecology, and Development. Years later, the impacts of these facilities continue to stain the waters of Verde Island Passage (VIP), the strait beside Batangas Bay long regarded as an underwater sanctuary.

It is a troubling trade-off: A proposed solution that simultaneously creates a new threat. The increasing presence of turbomachines has muted the once-gentle rhythm of the tides. The rapid expansion of LNG hubs raises the risk of compromising the primary source of income for more than two million Filipinos who rely on the fisheries and coastal resources surrounding VIP. The danger of oil leaks and industrial discharge threatens the world’s most biodiverse marine passage, where 60 percent of global shore fish species thrive.

Extreme overexploitation and widespread habitat disturbance, both in VIP and elsewhere in the country, have already caused dramatic genetic changes in marine fish populations over the past century, according to a biological sciences professor. These changes lead to grave consequences: Reduced chance of survival and reproductive success among organisms, shrinking fish populations that affect livelihoods and drive up food prices, and the gradual degradation of marine ecosystems.