CEBU CITY, Philippines - The Cebu City government is set to draft new pro-environment ordinances to show it is serious in fighting practices that contribute to global warming and climate change.The directive to put more teeth into the city’s effort for a cleaner environment came from acting City Mayor Michael Rama, who just attended the forum on environmental protection in Bangkok, Thailand. This early, however, concerns are being raised over the city government’s capability to enforce new environmental laws when it is still unable to implement its four-year-old Waste Segregation Ordinance. Rama told Cebu Daily News (CDN) that he instructed Councilor Nestor Archival and Cebu City Planning and Development Officer Paul Villarete to take charge in the “serious implementation” of the waste segregation ordinance.
This is to show that the city is determined to live by its declaration to help in the worldwide effort to combat climate change. Rama, Archival, and Villarete attended the “Better Air Quality Forum” in Thailand and committed to support the Kyoto Protocol, of which the Philippines is a signatory. From Bangkok, Rama went straight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the urban Waterfront Development together with Cebu Investment Promotion (CIPC) executive director Joel Mari Yu. Archival and Villarete are now in Cebu City. The Kyoto protocol, adopted in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its major feature is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community and the other signatory-countries to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The proposed new ordinances would address concerns over how to preserve and conserve water and Coastal Resources and issues involving agriculture, air and geo-hazards, solid waste management and health and sanitation, Archival said. Archival said that the Task Force on Climate Change, which he heads, was designated by the Environment Sector Committee of the Cebu City Local Development Council to initiate discussion with different sectors, compile the outcome of the discussions, and put it into general policy statements in coordination with existing environmental boards and commissions. Mayor Tomas Osmeña formed the task force during the city’s environment celebration on June 25. Archival confirmed that the solid waste management was the initial step among the many laws that had to be formulated and taken into serious consideration. He, too, lamented the city’s failure to implement Ordinance 2031 or the City Solid Waste Segregation Ordinance that took effect in November 2004. Engineer Dionesio Gualiza, head of the city’s Department of Public Services (DPS), said the ordinance has not been implemented for more over three years already. But he insisted the city government was not to blame, saying the fault lies with city residents. “Tungod sa atong katawhan, gahi kaayo og mga ulo, dili ta ka control nila. Mao wala nato ma-implement na nga ordinance. Lisud kaayo (Because the people are so hard headed and we can’t control them, it is very difficult to enforce the ordinance),” Gualiza told CDN. The ordinance requires the city residents to segregate their garbage, or separate the biodegradable from non-biodegradable wastes. The city’s garbage collectors are not supposed to collect unsegregated wastes. But garbage collectors still collect unsegregated wastes. Even if they are segregated, the garbage is still being dumped together at the city’s sanitary landfill in Barangay (village) Inayawan. All compactors that come in to the landfill dump assorted solid wastes from the households, hospitals and different establishments from the 80 barangays of the city. Everyday, these garbage trucks dump a total of 400 to 500 tons of unsorted garbage in the 15-hectare dumpsite. Archival, who chairs the City Council’s committee on ecology and environmental management and an advocate of household composting, said he is saddened with how the city is managing its solid wastes disposal. The city's landfill was put up in 1998 with an expected lifespan of only five years. Although the area is not completely filled up, it now looks like a sea of multi-colored garbage emitting a foul stench that often reaches the nearby South Road Properties (SRP). Gualiza agreed that a massive public education on waste segregation at the barangay level would be needed for the city to effectively enforce Ordinance 2031. “Dili sad mahimo nga dili collectahon ang mga basura kay manga-baho ta. Gibuhat na nato sa una, daghan kaayo nang reklamo (It’s not possible for us not to collect the unsegregated garbage because the city would be filled with stench. We did that before and there were a lot of complaints),” Gualiza said. He said DPS would also need new compactors to add to the existing 20 trucks. But Rama said he believed it is all a matter of enforcement, saying the city “could not just make an ordinance and not implement it.” He said he instructed Councilors Edwin Jagmoc, who chairs the committee on public services, and Archival to work together to better implement Ordinance 2031. Rama said the city government would be coming up with incentives for barangays that would participate in local waste segregation. Recently, there are about eight barangays that practice vermi-composting, he said. The first barangay to successfully have their solid waste management program is Barrio Luz. But recently, seven other barangays also started practicing composting — Apas, Binaliw, Budlaan, Hipodromo, Mambaling, Sawang Calero and Zapatera. According to Archival, a one-meter-by-20-meter area can hold almost 3,000 kilos of non-biodegradable garbage. If the barangays would cooperate in solid waste management programs, Archival said the city could save costs on gasoline (for the garbage compactors), manpower (garbage collectors) and could help achieve the goal of the city to reduce 10 percent of the greenhouse gases that the city had in the year 2000 by 2010. But even if the city could implement Ordinance 2031, it would be hard to segregate the wastes that were already dumped in Inayawan. The city will need to find a new site for a landfill so it can start anew, said Gualiza. Jagmoc meanwhile believed the city should prioritize a composting program instead of focusing the implementation of Ordinance 2031 in order to reduce the volume of garbage dumped in Inayawan. Jagmoc said the people may already learn how to segregate but they still throw away their biodegradable wastes that end up at the Inayawan dumpsite. He pointed out that half of the garbage dumped in Inayawan were biodegradable when these could be turned into composts right in their own backyards. Jagmoc said that there are already many ways to decompose garbage, which they plan to teach to the people in the barangays. Jagmoc said many in the barangays also know how to recycle garbage made of plastic materials, which represents 20 to 25 percent of the city’s wastes. /With a report from correspondent Chris A. Ligan | 
