Students ask CA to close Tondo dump

WHERE KIDS AGE EARLY. A boy scours the Vitas dump in Tondo, Manila, for recyclable materials in this Inquirer file photo. EDWIN BACASMAS

The youth of Tondo, Manila, insist that they deserve better.

Eight elementary and high school students, backed by a former legal adviser of Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, have filed a petition for a Writ of Kalikasan in the Court of Appeals seeking the closure of an open dump to protect the health of residents in at least five barangays.

The Oct. 8 petition prepared by lawyer Reynaldo Bagatsing had the students asking the court to order the removal of the Vitas dump, which they are  blaming for “the deterioration of the environment along the streets and areas in Barangay 101 to 105, Zone 8 in Manila.”

It called for the immediate issuance of a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) on the dump, which Bagatsing said was already ordered closed by then Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez during the term of Lim’s predecessor, Lito Atienza.

Bagatsing said the petitioners were students of Vicente Antonio J. Villegas High School and Vicente Lim Elementary School and are all residents of the five affected barangays. Noting that they are minors, Bagatsing maintained that “the petition was explained to them by their parents.”

The petition, which contained a joint statement by the students in Filipino, said the “operation of the illegal dump is anathema to the welfare of the residents and should be closed immediately.”

Named as respondents were Mayor Lim, the city health officer, the Metro Manila Development Authority, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the National Housing Authority and Leonel Waste Management Corp.

“The petitioners pray for an immediate issuance of a TEPO … to stop the deterioration of the environment along the streets and areas in Barangay 101 to 105 Zone 8 of Manila,” the petition said.

In their joint statement, the students said they grew up seeing their community being befouled by the vast dump.

“Our housing area is supposedly an NHA property but it has become a place for trash,” they said. “Every day we have to endure the smoke and the stench coming from rotting and burning garbage.”

As a result, the residents frequently suffer from respiratory ailments and other diseases, they said.

Bagatsing said the dumpsite was already ordered closed by Alvarez in 2001 and that the order was coursed through then Mayor Atienza. “But up to now, the city officials of Manila are still allowing the operation of the Vitas dumpsite,” he said.

The petition said concerned government agencies merely “paid lip service” to the residents’ clamor for the dump’s closure. “Despite determined efforts of the community to stop the operation of the dumpsite, complaints were not given appropriate actions and measures by the respondents.”

Two nongovernment organizations, the Junior Graftwatch and Kumalap-Pa, had thrown their support behind the campaign but were also ignored by the respondents, according to Bagatsing.

“Given no alternatives, the residents seek relief from the court through the Writ of Kalikasan,” he said.