Punchline
79% of mayors violating Solid Waste law
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
There is a monumental environmental and/or health crisis waiting to happen in the country, in general, and in Pangasinan, in particular.
In year 2000, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act was passed to preempt such a crisis. To underscore its significance, the law set February 16, 2006 as the deadline for the closure of open and controlled dumpsites.
Yet at the recent hearing of the senate environment committee presided by Senator Pia Cayetano, the following facts were bared – a total of 826 dump sites (open and controlled) remain in operation in 68 provinces across the country. And only some 2,500 of the country’s 43,500 barangays (villages) have installed waste management facilities.
And here’s the kicker, the five provinces listed to have the most number of dumpsites are Bohol with 57; Cebu, 38; Pangasinan, 36; Negros Oriental, 29; and Iloilo, 28!
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Yes, Pangasinan is maintaining 38 dumpsites in various towns and cities! Translation: 79% of our local execs are violating the law. God knows how mayors have put waste segregation facilities in place.
Yet from all indications, the provincial government under Guv Spines doesn’t consider the implementation of this law a priority.
Worse, the extension offices of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources in the city and municipal levels don’t seem concerned at the very least about the blatant violations of this particular law being committed every day.
To date, no local executive and/or garbage contactor has been cited administratively or criminally charged for the continued operation of a dumpsite in his/her town/city.
As with other man-made calamities in the past, courtesy of official negligence, I surmise that until a major epidemic breaks out or until the garbage heaped on the dumpsite litter the whole town or city after a cyclone or a tornado had blown it away, nothing could be expected form our elected officials and city/municipal environment officers to keep our communities safe.
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In 2002, Dagupan City’s then Mayor Benjie Lim was the first local executive to show keen interest in protecting the community’s environment, or so we thought. Six months in his first term, he announced a deadline for the closure of the city’s open dumpsite at the Bonuan Binloc, 100 meters away from the beach, and quickly moved to negotiate the purchase of a 30-hectare land in San Jacinto to serve as the city’s (and San Jacinto’s) sanitary landfill.
We were quick to support his plan only to find out weeks later that city hall was working double-time to serve a bigger agenda, a very lucrative deal, behind it. The proposed sanitary deal was, in fact, only a convenient cover for a shady real estate deal meant to boost bank accounts of some selected city officials then.
Today, the city is confronted not only with the loss of some P9 million from the city coffers (thanks to the manipulation for an overprice pegged by the mayor’s office’s co-conspirators in the city council, led by then Onor-onor City Councilor Teofilo Guzdiz III), but a potential loss of the land itself that cost the city P16M to farm tenants who filed a claim against the land.
Records today show that then City Mayor Lim and his administrator Raffy Baraan allowed the city to lose by default when they, for reasons only known to them, failed to respond to the pleadings filed and orders of the Department of Agrarian Reform Arbitration Board in connection with the farm tenants’ claims.
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Fortunately for the city, City Mayor Al Fernandez Jr. has taken steps to recover the land. The legal proceedings initiated by City Legal Counsel George Mejia are showing some positive results for now but there is still nothing to guarantee that the city can recover the land or its investment.
Assuming the worst that the city will eventually lose all claims to the 30-hectare land in San Jacinto, the city should consider filing a case against the officials of the Lim administration who lent themselves to the plot for their official neglect and dereliction of their duties.
It should be easy for City Administrator Alvin Fernandez, then the vice mayor during the Lim administration, to fill in the blanks that should ensure the incarceration of everyone responsible for the then unprecedented looting of the city coffers.
But as the PUNCH had reported, it was not to be the last under the Lim administration.
(Readers may reach columnist at punch.sunday@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/punchline/
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