Anti-Baha Alliance: There's more to get done!

The Anti-Baha Alliance did an ocular visit Friday to various sites where the city has started its clearing, cleaning and dredging operations. 

They visited Purok Riverside's Zones 1, 2 and 3, Purok Mahimulaton temporary relocation center, the Kimara relocation site and at Purok Mahimulaton where Sipalay's Water Master did the dredging operation. 

Jean Trebol and her group went on every creek and pointed the portions where the city has left some work unattended. 

Trebol said the city is doing what it has promised, however, there is more to get done right and properly. 

She pointed the pile of garbage and a huge cut of wood in the middle of a river at the back of several houses in Zone 2, Purok Riverside. 

The flow of water is very slow and the color of the water is almost black which means it lacks oxygen. 

Garbage spreads everywhere and the siltation has almost eaten half of the river, Trebol said. 

The city's team has not finished some portions of what they have cleared and dredged, but they transfer from one place to another which is supposedly, they have to start clearing, cleaning and dredging from upstream particularly in the creeks in Barangay Bata and downstream in Banago, she said. 

"I am not an Engineer. But common sense will tell us that there's more to get done before they transfer to another place. There is no question that they are working. But what we want is for them to work right and properly," she said. 

The group went to Purok Mahimulaton to see the progress of the work done with the use of a rented water master. 

The Water Master operator continues to dredge but then there is no solution yet on how to haul out a mountainous pile of sand. 

Some squatters there have not yet vacated the place because according to them, they have not yet received financial assistance from the city. 

Trebol said her group would do everything to solve the flooding problem. 

"There is nothing political here. This is a legitimate cause that needs political will," she said. 

The group meantime plans to do an educational campaign on proper garbage disposal because garbage is really a problem in Bacolod. 

They wrote the Department of Public Services (DPS) regarding their operation as how many dump trucks are operating, how many tons of garbage are collected everyday and several questions which can be used as baseline to approach the problem intelligently. 

DPS has not answered us. There is no malice when we asked questions like that because we want to know where we can start helping solve the problem, she said. 

The Anti-Baha Alliance was formed when the flooding problem in Sta. Clara and Villa Valderama subdivisions in Mandalagan was on its worst form. 

Sta. Clara is a high end subdivision, but the residents there seems to be living in a pool when it rains because flood waters enter their homes, affecting their day to day chores. 

The city has been slow in addressing the problem until the Alliance made the longest caravan in time of the Western Visayas Tourism Assembly last November. 

They went to the City Council to submit their manifesto, asking the city officials to get down to work now that they are seated in power. 

"It's time that you work for us because we form part of the reasons why you are all here in the City Government. No more promises. Just show us that you are working on this problem," Agnes Jalandoni, their spokesperson said it before. (EASD)

BACOLOD'S GARBAGE PROBLEM

Friday, December 01, 2006

Sanchez: Hall of Shamer

By Benedicto Sanchez

NATURE SPEAKS

FINALLY, finally, the DENR has finally noticed something amiss with Bacolod City's solid waste management program.

Rhodora Capulso, chief of the regional public affairs office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Region VI implied that Bacolod might lose its Hall of Famer status for the Cleanest and Greenest Highly Urbanized City in the Philippines if the city doesn't improve its garbage segregation and slaughterhouse services.

I'm glad Rhodora is back in town. I haven't seen her in ages since our community forestry days. Now, she's back in town to cover not the mountain forest of Salvador Benedicto and Calatrava but the urban jungle that is Bacolod.

My friends and readers know me as a "mountain man," focusing on mountain-related ecological concerns, especially on land tenure, forest conservation and sustainable livelihoods. I was the program coordinator then my organization BIND signed a contract with the DENR to organize the first community forestry program in Western Visayas.

But I live in Bacolod, which is a highly urbanized city. I felt awkward doing environmental and social development work for far-flung communities but not doing anything in my own community. Thus, when the Vancouver-based International Centre for Sustainable Cities (ICSC) came to Bacolod in 2002, I joined the multi stakeholder organization it formed.

The Canadians organized ICSC to bring the idea of urban sustainability into practical action. ICSC views itself as a broker, bringing together the business community, civil society organizations and various levels of government to tackle urban issues. During ICSC-sponsored workshops, our group of government, business and civil society representatives identified solid waste management as a felt need. Our core activities thus focused on waste segregation at source and practicing the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle). Our efforts eventually matured into putting in place Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.

The Act was a product of long-standing advocacies by civil society and local government units wrought by the unsystematic management of the country's solid waste.

In line with RA 9003, the group pushed for segregation at source, segregated transportation, storage, transfer, processing, treatment, and disposal of solid waste and all other waste management activities which do not harm the environment.

Alas, all our efforts went for naught, both under the administrations of Oscar Verdeflor and Luzviminda Valdez. Now Evelio Leonardia continues their dubious legacy. To ensure compliance with waste segregation at source, we lobbied for the establishment of Material Recovery Facilities in Bacolod's three public markets.

As any jaded observer would note, that has yet to happen. It's still business as usual. Just go early morning or evening around Araneta Street and Central Market. Unsegregated wastes are simply dumped in the streets. While ecological awareness needs to be improved among Bacolod residents, sometimes you can't really fault them. There are simply no waste receptacles in every street corner, let alone segregation bins.

Oh sure, you can't fault the Bacolod aides for doing a good job. They sweep and collect the unsegregated wastes, and dump everything into the public market's skip hoists, those huge waste receptacles in public markets. Then the waste are collected and thrown into the controlled dumpsite.

Of course, a sanitary landfill remains a dream, maybe a pipe dream. More money is spent on hiring cleaning aides rather than creating a system for reducing, reusing or recycling wastes.

For Bacolod's executives, their mindset is not on ecological solid waste management. It's public relations, more like. Good source of employment for the urban poor-and of votes. As for public awareness, it's banking on the principle of out of sight, out of mind, no different from sweeping the dirt under the rug.

No wonder, Bacolod is now a flood-prone city. Its drainage system is clogged by trash. I'm sure the city government spends a bundle just to declog the system after floodwaters refuse to drain itself after a heavy downpour.

If the national level award is reactivated, Bacolod should compete not with the four other Hall of Famer cities of Baguio, Puerto Princesa, Olongapo and Marikina. I've been in these last three cities recently and I'm impressed. With Bacolod, it should consider competing for the Hall of Shame. I'm sure it will be an early favorite. Comments are most welcome. Please send email to bqsanc@yahoo.com For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.
(December 1, 2006 issue)