Manila revives cleanliness drive

MANILA, Philippines - As road clearing operations in Manila continue, Mayor Joseph Estrada called on its 1.7 million residents yesterday to help keep the capital city clean and be part of his revived extensive cleanliness campaign.

Estrada ordered all concerned city hall departments to again strictly enforce the city’s 1994 anti-littering ordinance.

He said residents could support the campaign by merely practicing proper waste disposal and garbage segregation.

With a population of 1.78 million, Manila produces 8,700 tons of garbage everyday, with 30 percent or roughly 2,610 tons ending up on the streets and in drainage pipes and waterways, Estrada lamented.

Manila is one of the world’s most densely populated cities with 42,857 people per square kilometer, or 111,002 people per square mile. Tondo is the most populous, accounting for 38 percent of the total population, followed by Sampaloc (20.7 percent) and Santa Ana (10.7 percent).

 “You can just imagine, with this burgeoning population, the amount of garbage the city produces everyday,” Estrada said. “Cleaning up the city is such a very difficult task, something everyone should be involved (in) if we want immediate results.”

Of the six districts of Manila, District 3 remains the “dirtiest” in terms of the volume of garbage being collected daily, according to Belle Borromeo, head of the Department of Public Services (DPS).

District 3 is composed of Binondo, Quiapo, San Nicolas and Sta. Cruz, comprising a total of 126 barangays. With a land area of 6.24 square kilometers, it has a 2015 population of 221,780.

They collect 10 truckloads of garbage everyday from District 3 alone, Borromeo said.

“That’s about 40 to 50 tons a day,” she said as she echoed Estrada’s call to city residents to observe discipline in waste disposal.