STRAIGHT FROM THE BIG CITY

Play of words in governance
IKE 'KA IKING' SENERES

Words are just words as the saying goes, but words can mean life or death for people in the marginalized sectors who are the potential victims of verbal misunderstandings.
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A landfill is not supposed to be a dumpsite, and vice-versa, and there is supposed to be nothing in between, not even the so-called “managed dumpsites”.
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Poverty reduction is not the same as poverty alleviation, and these two words are not supposed to be inter-changeable. Moreover, the delivery of public services is supposed to be a normal function of government, and therefore, public services should not be passed off as poverty alleviation.
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In a manner of speaking, a real sanitary landfill could actually be called a “managed dumpsite” because garbage is dumped in these facilities, but the term should not be confused with the ordinary dumpsites where dumping is “managed” by controlling the garbage inflow.
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As if caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, our local government units (LGUs) are finding it difficult to enforce waste segregation laws on one hand, and the construction of real sanitary landfills on the other hand. If only one or the other could be realized, our solid waste problems would not be that grave.
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Going direct to the point, poverty reduction is no other than actually reducing the number of people who fall below the poverty line. There is no way around this, and no amount of poverty alleviation would cover this up.
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For how long are we going to live with the ever increasing rate of poverty and the ever increasing volume of garbage? For as long as our government officials would not know the difference between landfills and dumpsites on one hand, and the difference between poverty reduction and poverty alleviation on the other hand.
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How should the government head towards the direction of meeting its commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations? There are many possible approaches, but I think the best way is to enable each village to comply one at a time, just like laying individual bricks in building a castle.
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I am now inviting suggestions from all those interested, for them to submit ideas as to how an MDG compliant village should be built and evaluated. Bear in mind however that the MDGs are just frameworks that could still be expanded and improved as national conditions would allow it.
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To start the ball rolling, I am bringing out my own ideas. To add to the MDG framework, I think that compliant villages should be self-sufficient as they are self-contained. Its architecture should be similar to the design of the Internet, wherein each network is independently working by itself, but is interconnected to the bigger functioning global network.
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Just to cite a few examples, I think that compliant villages should be self-sufficient in their needs for energy, food, water, housing, health and sanitation. As resources would allow, the delivery of these resources should be integrated with each other, in a way allowing these localities to become “synergy villages”, so to speak.
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Take the case of energy for instance. With a good water supply, sanitation could be improved by installing flush toilets that would feed biogas chambers, thus ensuring a supply of cooking gas. Water would also enable the villages to grow their own food, an activity that could also reduce solid wastes and prevent hunger.
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Although home ownership is ideal, it is more practical to give villagers access to rental housing. After all, they could just buy or build their own homes as their incomes would increase. Food production could give them this income, another example of synergy. ** For more information about public governance, email iseneres@yahoo.com