ROXAS City – Capiz governor Antonio del Rosario promised to revitalize the Panay River, which he claimed to have become “polluted” and “not fit for human activities.”

Del Rosario plans to form a Panay River Council, under which a “Task Force Save Panay River” will operate, in what is seen as a long-term campaign to rid the river of and protect it from pollutants.

Citing Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office head Valentin Talavero, the governor said the Panay River is now classified with a “C Status.”

“C Status means ‘polluted with human waste and not suitable for seashell production and culture,’” he told a news conference at the capitol here. “It is also not fit for bathing, swimming and other human activities.”

The Panay River is a source of livelihood of Capisnons in the hinterland and at the riverbanks. It is where most seashells, especially talaba (oysters) and tahong (green mussels), sold at the Teodoro Arcenas Trade Center here came from.

But the river’s resources are at risk because of pollution, del Rosario told reporters.

An 11-minute video documentation by the Capiz Aksyon News Center (formerly Capiz Provincial Press Bureau), which operates under the Office of the Governor, shows septic and other waste materials from hospitals, urban poor houses and backyard hog raisers, among others, being disposed at the Panay River.

“I am so dismayed that the river is so dirty, [what] with [all the] garbage and human waste,” del Rosario said. “Why do they (local government) allow this?”