Baguio is now top tourist destination!

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- In so many weeks to come, I bet the Irisan dumpsite area will itself become the next most popular tourism hot spot in the country as camera buffs and plain “uziseros” will mill around the area.

Again, we were very successful in promoting the city as the number one tourist destination in the North Philippines and Asia, not because of good advertising but because of the lack of political will to close the Irisan garbage dumpsite.

The time, money and effort spent by the private sector in promoting the city are not good enough as compared to the “no sweat” effort of promotions that resulted from the basura incident.
It did close once but it re-opened even faster before the city felt the effects of its closure. Thanks but no thanks to the “promo” that once again effectively placed Baguio in the world map, “no sweat.”

Last August 27, continuous rains brought by Typhoon Mina caused a mountain of garbage at the crown of the Irisan dumpsite to disintegrate and slide down, and with its heavy weight, chopped off the crown of the eight-meter high and 1.5-meter thick retaining wall.

This resulted to a rush of garbage that killed three siblings and caused the disappearance of their Lola and one other casualty. The trash slide destroyed a number of houses on its way down the slope, damaged private homelots, burial grounds and other properties.

Aside from making Baguio internationally popular again, it also brought to mind bad memories of the Payatas tragedy more than a decade ago when big masses of heavy trash fell over, burying a community and killing more than 300 people.

The latest incident also brought positive effects such as rousing the EcoWaste Coalition, a waste and pollution watchdog that pushed anew the closure and rehabilitation of dumpsites nationwide.

Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 calls for the closure of open and controlled dumpsites by February 16, 2004 and February 16, 2006, respectively, and the establishment of engineered sanitary landfills (ESL).

Closure and rehabilitation are aimed at guaranteeing the needs of dumpsite waste pickers and their families, and that they are provided decent homes and livelihood.

ESLs make use of clay soil, particularly lifted from abandoned rice paddies. ESLs also make use of thick polyethylene liners that are laid on the floor of the pit to prevent leachate from penetrating the soil that pollute water sources and aquifers, hence, if properly constructed, ESLs are expected to lessen air and soil pollution.

But the Environmental Management Bureau had reported that like all the rest of the LGUs, hundreds more in the country do not have their own ESL, because of the difficulty in obtaining the public's acceptance.

At least in the Cordillera, three municipalities have started developing ESLs. These are the municipalities La Trinidad in Benguet, Bangued in Abra, and Alfonso Lista in Ifugao.

The law also directs LGUs to establish materials recovery facilities (MRF) in a cluster of barangays to reduce waste at the grassroots level, and for the public to segregate waste and reuse things that could still be used in order to lessen the amount of waste produced.

I have seen a few MRFs in the city and in nearby towns but, again these facilities do not get much attention from whoever was tasked to be in charge. These MRFs, as a result, become the usual abandoned tambakanngbasura.

Right after the incident, residents around the Irisan trash slide could not keep their anger and called on local officials to immediately shutdown the landfill to avoid further loss of lives and property.

In fact, residents below the dumpsite and along Asin road have been warning the city thru Tuba officialseverytime but all these fell on deaf ears.

Four to five years back, Barangay Tadiangan councilman Mike Bonnol led a group that barricaded the entrance of the dumpsite saying, they are “fed up with the empty promises from officials of Baguio, particularly the assurance that the dumpsite will be closed and relocated."

He said they passed several resolutions, but nothing has been done. Baguio officials never acted on the resolutions coming from a barangay in a neighboring town. That time they also asked Peter Rey Bautista who was then mayor to personally visit the area.

Barangay Tadiangan of Tuba is located below the dumpsite, thus, there is fear that the mountain of garbage will collapse anytime because of the rains. And Bonnol already had doubts that the retaining wall will not be able to hold the volume of garbage dumped at the dumpsite everyday.

On August 27, what they feared more than five years ago actually happened.

Amado Binwag of Asin Road said that in 2009, when garbage was seen spilling over the crest of the dumpsite due to continuous rains, residents of Irisan in Baguio and Tadiangan in Tuba have demanded for the closure of the dumpsite which has been affecting them since the 70s.

Since 1989, he attests that they have been protesting ever since for the dumpsite’s closure and relocation but “officials never listened to us.

Irisan and Asin road residents expressed grief saying that since the opening of the dumpsite, all the mayors that came and went committed to close the dumpsite, yet dumping continues until the fatal incident happened.

The distressed barangays in Baguio and Tuba have waited long and it took the death of three children to tell Baguio officials that it is time for the city to do something concrete.

Negotiations for the purchase of a land for a sanitary landfill will again commence after these were part of an unfinished work done four years ago. But this aggravated the problem.

The city owns a lot at Santo Tomas that is enough for the establishment of an ESL. It has duly been inspected and approved by the DENR. Yet, Baguio officials still entertained real estate brokers and landowners who offered to sell their land for landfills.

By the way, there is money in basura, if you know what I mean. From what I have heard from Chong Loi’s regulars, a so-called “environmentalist” public official has approached one of the landowners and suggested that P50M has to be placed on top of the actual cost of the landowner’s property, in case his lot is approved to be purchased by the city.

Whatever, Baguio officials should stop unnecessary finger-pointing, come to their senses and do something good for Irisan and it’s neighboring town’s affected barangays. The city has been “calculatedly” dumping it’s garbage on the boundary and it knew that one day the worst would happen. The attitude was “basuramo, itambakmosakarubamo!”

I hope it will not come to the point where we find Tuba suing Baguio officials for civil damages and criminal acts.
Should certain officials take their leave of absence so that an investigation can proceed? And can this incident trigger a people’s action for “vote recall” due to loss of trust and confidence?
Or should some officials resign or commit suicide just like the Japanese who do so to redeem their name? Oho, but our officials are not Japanese, not even Japanese-minded and so they will not commit suicide nor do they have the conscience to resign or take a leave of absence.

In 2006, two Danao City officials who were first degree relatives were at odds. One of them, together with the City Council asked the DENR to investigate the other official for allegedly allowing the continued use of an open dumpsite.

In a resolution, the Danao City Council accused the official of violating RA 9003 which prohibits the use of open dumpsites as disposal sites of garbage after 2004.

The council pointed out the continued use of the city’s open dumpsite in one of its barangays. The legislative body alleged that the mayor was remiss in his job. What was worse was that the official allegedly allowed garbage from another city to be dumped at the Danao open dumpsite.

I have heard that there are lawyers who are willing to volunteer their services for Tuba and for private individuals who were victims in the Irisan garbage slide.

It was an accident that could have been avoided if only those concerned did what they should have done years ago. The “Honorable City Officials” have no one to blame but themselves. Mea Culpa! – marchfianza777@yahoo.com