On this edition of “Today We Learned,” you can apparently go fishing in the Pasig River. If you’ve ever wanted to live out your “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” dreams in real life without straying too far away from the city, recreational fishing actually happens along one of the most popular rivers in the Philippines.
According to the Pasig River Coordinating and Management Office (PRCMO), you can pull up a chair and bring out your hooks and fishing rods for a relaxing afternoon of fishing by the water. The PRCMO also says that other recreational activities, like biking and jogging, are just some of the things you can do along Pasig River.
While we’re happy about this particular development, it leaves us with more questions than answers. Chiefly, are these fish edible?
There’s a distinction between fishing for sport and fishing for food, and the Pasig River isn’t known for being the cleanest waterway in the country. ICYDK, Pasig River was actually declared biologically dead (meaning it can no longer sustain marine life) back in the ’90s. There’s been an effort to clean the river and bring it back to its formerly pristine state, but it’s still the top dumper of plastics in the ocean worldwide.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) classifies the Pasig River as a Class C river. This means that the river is suited for recreational activities like fishing and boating. It also means that the Pasig River can support the growth of fish and other marine life.
We probably wouldn’t serve our catch of the day on the table, but it’s nice to know that life does exist in the Pasig River.