Affected residents of Irisan and Asin Rd. Barangay (village) barricaded the gate of the open dump facility to prevent dump trucks from entering the area. The residents started to converge in the area at exactly 4:30 in the early morning of 14 July 2008 to protest the city government lack of action to finally close the said dump facility in compliance to Republic Act 9003 otherwise known as The Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
The Philippine Congress passed the law to ease the growing problem of garbage all over the country. With its encompassing provisions to protect the country’s environment, all local government units were mandated to abide by the law to close all existing open dump facilities in their respective area of responsibility.
On paper, the law is entirely good but actual enforcement is something not easy for local officials to do. The city mayor failed to implement R.A.9003 because he was dilly-dallying in his stance whether to close the dumping area or not. Although the city government had made a policy of waste segregations in all the Barangay, compliance rate is very low.
For this, all mixed garbage collected in and around the city ends up in open dumpsite for waste pickers to scavenge. Ironically, every dump truck has banner of its own with words such as non-biodegradable, biodegradable, recyclable, but actually loaded with none segregated waste products from households and business establishments.
The continuing operation of open dumpsite is too much to bear. Blocking those dump trucks from entering the area is the only way to let the good mayor know that the city is violating Republic Act 9003 which has been challenged for years.
Tags: environment, garbage, waste
