Our city is growing, but are we growing wise?

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

Every time I drive around Iloilo City and province, I feel a sense of pride. A new high-rise here, a wider road there. Cranes dot the skyline, and the sound of progress is everywhere. We are a city on the move.

But a recent conversation with a professor from the University of the Philippines left me with a question I can’t shake: Are we building smart?

He introduced me to a term that sounds technical and boring, but is actually one of the most important ideas for our city’s future: the Environmental Impact Assessment, or EIA.

I nodded along, thinking I knew what it was. A piece of paper, a permit, a box to check before the digging starts. He smiled and said, “That’s the problem. We treat it like paperwork, when it should be the whole blueprint.”

Think of it like a doctor’s visit. If you have a headache, the doctor can give you a pill. But a good doctor gives you a full check-up—heart, blood pressure, history—to see how everything is connected. An integrated EIA is that general check-up for our city. It asks not just, “What will this road do?” but, “What will this road, plus that new building, plus that factory, do to our river, our air, and our vulnerability to floods ten years from now?”

To illustrate, my professor pointed to projects we all know: the Iloilo Sunset Boulevard, which may have gone forward without such a review. Or the proposed bridge to Guimaras, where the assessment was, in his Hiligaynon words, palagpat—careless. “Wala gid may naka-pensar sini… amo na nga wala ga-inangot ang mga projects,” he said. In English: “No one really thinks about this… that’s why the projects don’t connect.”

Why does this matter to ordinary Ilonggos? Because when the planning is careless, the consequences land on us.

It matters when another typhoon hits. Mangroves and rivers are our natural flood control, like giant sponges. When projects damage them, the water ends up in our streets and homes. Urban poor communities in flood-prone barangays are hit the hardest, often losing everything they have.

It matters at the dinner table. Those mangroves are nurseries for fish. When they’re destroyed, catches shrink, market prices rise, and the linugaw and pinamalhan we love become more expensive. Protecting ecosystems means protecting our food and our wallets.

And most of all, it matters for our children. Do we want to leave them a city of disconnected projects that create more problems than they solve? Or do we want Iloilo to grow with wisdom, where progress doesn’t come at the cost of safety or nature?

The professor told me he learned this integrated approach ages ago during a training in Hong Kong. It’s simple but revolutionary: see the whole picture. Right now, we keep patching holes without realizing the house itself may be sinking.

We can change that. The solution starts with a question. The next time we hear of a project in our barangay or see one in the news, we as citizens should ask: “Where is the integrated Environmental Impact Assessment? Can we see the plan? How does it connect with everything else?”

Our city officials and developers are not the enemy; they want progress, as we do. But it’s our shared duty to make sure progress is thoughtful and sustainable. Let’s adopt a simple mantra: “No project without the full check-up.”

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This is not a theoretical problem about past projects; it’s knocking on our door right now.

Take the massive reclamation project being proposed along our city’s coast. Word from informants at City Hall and in the business community is that it’s moving quickly, almost “good to go.”

Let’s be clear: reclamation carries heavy and permanent impacts. It reshapes our coastline, disrupts marine ecosystems, and alters water flow in ways that can worsen flooding. This is high-stakes development.

And this is precisely where a rigorous, integrated EIA becomes our shield. It protects the environment, but also fisherfolk and urban communities whose lives depend on a healthy coast. It even protects investors. A project that skips a proper EIA is a gamble—one bad flood or ecological collapse could trigger lawsuits, backlash, and costly repairs. A transparent, science-based EIA de-risks the investment, proves due diligence, and earns public trust.

Doing it right from the start isn’t a barrier to progress. It’s the only way to make sure progress is real, lasting, and profitable for everyone.

If City Hall and the developers choose this path, Iloilo can set the standard for wise and sustainable growth in the Philippines. That’s a legacy worth building.