City to craft code to address garbage

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City Council will be crafting a code for the solid waste management and disposal of the city to effectively and efficiently collect the garbage.

In a privilege speech, Vice Mayor Michael Rama said the city needs to update the 30-year-old ordinance which provides the city’s system of garbage collection.

“I believe that despite our political differences, we can unite in pounding the legislative anvil to craft a relevant and updated ordinance on waste management to serve the greater good for the greater number,” Rama said.

He said the legislative department should support the call of Mayor Edgardo Labella to have a “clean Cebu City.”

Members of the City Council approved the motion of Rama to draft a code on solid waste management and disposal.

His speech was referred to the council’s committee on laws; committee on public services; committee on health; and committee on environment which will meet to draft the said measure.

Rama also expressed support on the pronouncement of Labella who stopped neighboring cities to dump garbage in a private landfill in Binaliw, saying the city government is not a dumping site for other local government units.

Councilors Eugenio Gubuya, Jr. and Joy Augustus Young had criticized the executive department on the stoppage of dumping of garbage by the other LGUs in Binaliw.

“It is not fair enough that we will not allow other LGUs to throw in Binaliw and we are throwing our garbage in other LGUs. I’m just asking if it’s fair? We are throwing our garbage in Consolaction, in Aloguinsan. And if we are not allowing other LGUs to throw in Binaliw and they will not allow us to throw in their place? So where are we going to throw our garbage?” Gabuya said.

Young, for his part, said he is not so much concerned on the stoppage of other LGUs to dump in Cebu City but the city should not say that it is not a dumping site of garbage.

“How can we say like that when it’s something that we’ve been doing in other LGUs?” Young added.

Allies of Labella in the council said the owner of the landfill has to comply with all the laws concerning the operations of a landfill.

As to the creation of the solid waste management code, Rama said the council’s objective is to gather the garbage as the first step and will be followed by the “proper and environmental” manner of disposing the waste, which for him is the “bigger problem.”

He stated that it was during his stint as the mayor to close the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill because of environmental issues.

“We need to pass a comprehensive ordinance that shall incorporate the best practices available as well as the applicable technological data on the modern way of solid waste management,” he added.

Rama said the 30-year-old ordinance for the garbage collection is now past its applicability, adding that there’s a need to update it.

“Time has overtaken most of its detailed provision even if some of its portions remain to be valid,” he added.

The City Council should also support Labella’s pronouncement that the city should not be the repository of the waste of other local government units, referring to the private landfill in Barangay Binaliw.

Rama said the city government should engage a private service provider that will collect the city’s wastes and dispose it in facilities that are outside Cebu City. (FREEMAN)