QC gov’t found liable for Payatas ‘trash-slide’

Nearly two decades since a “trash-slide” at the Payatas dump killed over 200 people, a court has found the Quezon City government liable for gross negligence and ordered it to pay over P6 million in damages to the victims’ families.

“The improper and irresponsible dumping of waste thereby creating a mountain-like pile of garbage is the proximate cause of the violent death of the victims and loss of personal and real properties,” ruled Judge Marilou Runes Tamang of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 97.

In her 133-page decision dated Oct. 30 last year that was released to the media only on Thursday, Tamang said that “[the] mountain-like trash in itself [was] a testament [to] the city government’s gross negligence in the management and operation of the [dump].”

She ordered the city government to each pay the 56 heirs who filed the case P50,000 in temperate damages, P50,000 in moral damages and P10,000 in exemplary damages, for a total of over P6 million.

The Public Interest Law Center (PILC), which represented the victims’ families, said it considered the ruling a landmark legal case in torts and disaster liabilities, where a court asserted proximate cause to exact accountability.

Proximate cause is legally sufficient to result in liability when an event, particularly an injury, was due to negligence or an intentional wrongful act.

“The decision, if read meticulously and with laws such as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act deeply associated with this tragedy, helps shape a template for local governments in averting and managing disasters,” the PILC said in a statement.

The Quezon City government has filed a motion for reconsideration although it has yet to issue a statement on the court decision.

On July 10, 2000, a 50-foot-high mountain of packed trash collapsed after a week of heavy rains caused by Typhoons “Ditang” and “Edeng.”

The “garbage-slide” killed more than 200 persons and buried thousands of houses in Sitio Pangako which was home to at least 3,000 informal settlers.

The tragedy led to the passage of Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 which permanently banned open ground dumps in the country.

After the law was passed, the Payatas dump was converted into a “controlled disposal facility” in 2004 until it was closed in 2010. A separate and strictly regulated landfill was set up near the old dump the following year, but it was also ordered closed by the Environmental Management Bureau in December 2017 for a review of its environmental clearance certificate.