CITY OF SAN FERNANDO— Tarlac Gov. Victor Yap on Monday asked Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. (MCWMC) to stop the disposal of illegally imported trash from Canada that the Bureau of Customs (BOC) seized two years ago.
Yap said he would only allow the resumption of the disposal if the MCWMC presents a certification from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) explaining the nature of the wastes.
The BOC contracted the company to bury the trash from at least 29 40-foot containers at its sanitary landfill in Capas town. The other containers are in Subic Bay Freeport, where these had been transferred to ease congestion at the Port of Manila.
Yap said the demand to see the DENR certification was his response to complaints that he and other provincial officials were receiving from residents of Bamban and Capas. The people complained of stench, noise, dust and mud as trucks transport garbage, he said.
The landfill sits on 100 hectares of rolling hills at Sub-zone D of the Clark Special Economic Zone. It can be reached via Sitio Kalangitan in Barangay Cutcut II in Capas or Sitio Pagasa in Barangay Anupul in Bamban.
Report wanted
Yap wanted to see the report on a waste analysis and characterization study (WACS) made on Nov. 10, 2014, by the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) and approved by EMB Director Jonas Leones.
A copy given by MCWMC to the Inquirer said the EMB analyzed samples from three containers and these consisted of “municipal solid waste or garbage … which cannot be recycled and destined for disposal.”
Other documents showed that the WACS was used by EMB to advise BOC and a regional trial court in Manila to recommend a final disposal.
Judge Paulino Gallegos, in an order on April 1, directed BOC to “facilitate the processes leading to the dispersal of the illegal shipment and/or toxic contraband.” The order referred to 34 containers.
The judge also ordered the containers to be released to the local shipper, Le Soleil.
A May 7 report by the BOC’s condemnation committee referred to 55 containers.
Rufo Colayco, MCWMC president and chief executive officer, said a copy of the WACS report was e-mailed to Yap at 4 p.m. on Monday.
“[MCWMC continues to do] a job we were requested to perform in order to put an end to a long festering issue, in a practical and sensible manner and in full compliance with environmental protection law,” Colayco said.
‘Not a valid issue’
“The issue that some have raised—that under international protocols, the garbage that was imported two years ago must be repatriated regardless of its being nontoxic—is evidently not a valid issue,” he said.
MCWMC, Colayco said, had undertaken this task to help the national government end a problem “that appears to have unduly disrupted port operations and which has unduly distracted the government from its proper tasks.”
Diana Figueroa, president of the Concerned Citizens of Bamban, has warned that residents would barricade roads leading to the landfill, but none had been put up on Monday afternoon.
Colayco said he advised guards at the landfill not to use force should the residents try to block the dumping.
“We will obtain the identity of all the troublemakers and avail of all applicable legal measures to redress their wrongful disruption of services that we are performing on behalf of the national government,” he said.
He said MCWMC would get Clark Development Corp. and the provincial and national governments to intervene if the Bamban government passes a resolution banning the passage of garbage trucks in the town.