AI illustration
Alamat ng Ilog Pasig
The Pasig River runs about 25 kilometers from Laguna de Bay to Manila Bay. People in Metro Manila tell origin stories for the river and its name. Many versions exist, so we give only the setting.
Folklore is retold; versions differ.
Sources: Wikipedia: Pasig River (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikidata (CC0)
The story
The Pasig River flows about 25 kilometers from Laguna de Bay to Manila Bay and cuts Metro Manila in two. Many alamat exist about how the river and its name began, but no checkable version is known.
The name comes from a Tagalog word. Writers explain it as a river that runs into the sea, or as a sandy riverbank. The flow can reverse. In the wet season, high water in the lake pushes the river toward the bay, and in the dry season the tides decide its direction.
The river was the main road of Spanish Manila, and the old Tagalog polities of Namayan, Maynila and Tondo grew along its banks. In the later 20th century, waste and industry damaged it badly, and it was declared biologically dead in 1990. A clean-up program has since brought back some fish, birds and plants. In 2019 it won the Asia Riverprize.