Land reclamation is an attractive business proposition. While land at the old North Reclamation area was already selling at P500 per sq. m., it cost only between P40 to P50 pesos to reclaim a square meter of new land. In the 1990s, the numbers appear to favor developers and local governments. F.F. Cruz and Co., reclaimed for Mandaue City some 200 hectares of land from a shallow bay adjacent to the North reclamation area. The city stands to earn P60 million in realty taxes from the reclamation area. Not least, without spending a single centavo, the city gets 22 percent of the new land - net of road and drainage systems - or roughly 28 hectares, with a current market value in excess of P2 billion.

While the reclaimed land in Mandaue is marketed as a commercial area, other reclamation sites are being eyed for other purposes. A 300-hectare industrial zone is envisioned for a reclamation project south of Cebu City, which will be funded as part of the Metro Cebu Development Project. Currently being bidded out is the Cordova-Mactan reclamation project, the largest yet, envisioned to make a new land for a super container port, commercial and industrial parks, and an international finance center. In the North Mandaue-Consolacion area,. another reclamation site is being considered as a site for low-cost housing suburb.

The only other inexpensive land available for development are agricultural lands and the uplands. No matter, developers are now bulldozing rice and corn lands and clearing mountains to make way for high-end subdivisions, golf courses and industrial estates.

Although these developments have opened up new economic opportunities they also highlight the need for a comprehensive, ecologically-sensitive, and socially responsible land and development policy.