Laguna de Bay is the largest freshwater body in the Philippines with multiple-use. The primary use of the lake is to serve as the future domestic water supply at Metro Manila. The biota of the lake consists of 25 species of fish, 24 species of zooplankton, two species of shrimps, 6 species of mollusks, 42 species of aquatic macrophytes and 154 species of algae. A total of 60 mesophilic anaerobic and facultative anaereobic bacteria and 453 bacterial strains belonging to 22 genera have been identified. A review of 12 papers dealing with biological studies on Laguna de Bay in relation to aquatic pollution is presented. Studies on the impact of heavy metal, pesticide and thermal pollution on the biota of the lake have been sporadic and cursory. There is need for a more comprehensive and systematic monitoring of the lake's pollutants to provide time-series for pollution abatement

Technology options involving the use of natural and accelerated bioremediation systems to treat complex mixtures of aromatic wastes would be a useful addition to current remediation strategies. The approach outlined in this paper would focus on harnessing the potential of a key detoxification enzyme, glutathione-S-transferase (GST) as part of an accelerated phytoremediation system to detoxify aromatic pollutants in soil and ground water. Major efforts will include the clarification of GST detoxification activity by characterizing the enzyme in a series of phenolic and azo-dye-tolerant phytoremediation candidates (e.g. elite clones of thyme), and the development of methods to manipulate the GST detoxification pathway in elite plant clones to accelerate the detoxification of aromatic pollutants. The information provided by the GST characterization studies could be used to develop significant new phytoremediation systems based on manipulated GST biotransformation pathways in elite plant clonal systems tolerant to highly polluted environments. One major advantage of the new phytoremediation systems would be their potential to perform in highly contaminated environments by providing a favorable rhizophere zone for microbial degradation of aromatics along with an enhanced GST-linked detoxification pathway