Karl Benedict N.

Sayson
Natural Resources & Environmental Law (LLB 224N)
EH 401

THE SOLID ECOLOGICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT,

A WASTE FOR NOW

The intent of the law is commendable, to wit: ensuring the protection of public
health and environment, maximizing the utilization of valuable resources, ensuring
proper segregation, among others. As frank as it may seem, but we are not yet ready
to fully enforce the outcome we wish to produce in implementing this law.

The discussion here will focus more on the personal observation and evaluation
by the author. Moreover, the point of discussion will be limited in the local level,
meaning the implementation of the law in Cebu City.

Here in Cebu, the issue of garbage disposal and collection has been in the
forefront for a number of years already. In fact, the controversy has become a go-to
issue in recent elections, making it a source of how candidates court the peoples
votes.

Recently, there was a problem in Cebu as to where to dispose the garbage after
collection. It was found out that the Inawayan Landfill could no longer accommodate
the ever-increasing amount of waste in the city. It was when Mayor Osmena, for a
short span of time, allowed the disposal of garbage at the South Road Properties.
However, such measure was rather short-lived because its odor affected the
University of Cebu in Mambaling, which thereafter prompted the mayor to propose a
5,000-peso compensation to those UC students affected. Here, we could just imagine
that if it was approved by the council, we would have spent, or rather wasted, 35
million pesos just to accommodate all 7,000 students in UC-Mambaling. This is an
issue wherein 35 million would be spent, not for the cost of maintaining a temporary
landfill, but a problem of compensation to those affected, who in the first place should
not have been.

Evidently, we can infer that truly this is more of a problem than a solution. We
are even asking for funds from the PAGCOR to facilitate the transfer of our waste
from the Inayawan Landfill to a place as far as Consolacion. Aside from the fact that
it is unpracticable to dispose the waste of the city at Consolacion, such landfill is
privately owned which means to say, City Hall is having a third-party company
renting to us their lot for us to dispose of our garbage. Yet again, money is involved.

It is in this sense that until we establish a purely government-owned landfill,

the objectives sought to be accomplished in Republic Act 9003 will remain to be in the
cloud. A landfill is not just the problem in this situation since we would still need to
acquire certain equipment and machineries to facilitate the recycling of the materials
that can still be salvaged in order for us to really address the word recyling and for
us to faithfully achieve what is being contemplated in the law.

What is being emphasized here is that there is still the need to address the
most basic issue of garbage collection and disposal in a city as urbanized as Cebu, so
why pass the burden to those places wherein the situation could be worse? We,
therefore, need to address our current garbage collection woes first in order for us to
move forward in implementing RA 9003.

Another issue is the amount of garbage trucks we have. Currently we stand at

133 city hall-owned dump trucks. This number is way below the number of trucks
needed to accommodate all 46 barangays in the North and all 34 barangays in the
South. This is only for the collection of garbage in general. How inefficient could 133
dump trucks be when we require them to collect at least thrice per week for
Biodegradable, Non-biodegradable, and Recyclable when even once a week is hard
to accomplish?

As much as I would want to say that what is really needed is a stricter

implementation of this law, I am of the opinion that we do not even have the means
to simply implement the law, so how could we possibly strictly or better implement
it?

Cebu is a good reference point for us to discuss the potential efficiency or

inefficiency of RA 9003. There is no doubt that Cebu is considered as the second most
urbanized city next to Metro Manila and if a city like Cebu is suffering in terms of
garbage collection and disposal then it would be safe to say that cities and
municipalities next in line would have a hard time, too. To be fair, we are not ruling
out the capabilities of less urbanized cities in the thought that a better solution or
implementation of such law might be formulated in order to address the problem
since less populated cities would be equal to less garbage produced. But as far as
status quo is concerned, that just seems not to be the case.

For now, we do not have the proper facilities, the respectable amount of trucks,
and even the minimum budget to address our garbage problem. We cannot give what
we do not have. If we force the strict implementation of this Ecological Solid Waste
Management in status quo, it would only become the Ecological Solid Waste
Mismanagement. And we do not want that.
Sources:

1. http://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2001/ra_9003_2001.html

2. http://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/140399/tomas-pagcor-oks-use-p26-8m-

garbage-disposal

3. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/local-news/2017/07/13/dps-seeks-more-funds-

garbage-disposal-552653

4. http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/local-news/2017/07/16/fate-cebu-citys-133-

trucks-553176

5. http://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/104694/tom-o-p5k-for-each-uc-metc-student

6. http://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/128200/cebu-city-garbage-ordinances

7. http://www.philstar.com/metro-cebu/670603/sanitary-landfill-consolacion-

open-week

8. http://ap.fftc.agnet.org/ap_db.php?id=153&print=1