Cagayan de Oro folk protest trash

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines—Responding to a call by Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ, DD, students and concerned citizens here took to the streets Monday afternoon for a two-hour mass action to urge the city council to act on the worsening garbage problem.

“This is a very serious problem,” Fr. Roberto C. Yap, president of Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan and chair of the city’s solid waste management board, said in a recent board meeting.

After its review of this year’s city budget, the city council composed mostly of opponents of Mayor Oscar S. Moreno, cancelled and decreased the provisions for solid waste management.

This “zero and reduced budget for vital programs and projects relative to solid waste management of the city,” Yap said in a four-page letter he wrote to the city council, “will impact on the quality of the environment, which will lead to endangering the public health, welfare and security of city residents.”

When there was no reply to his letter, Yap wrote another one to “request a dialogue with the members of the city council at their most convenient time to present and discuss the dire need of the city relative to solid waste management….”

During a recent board meeting, when it was apparent that the city council had ignored the board’s letters, the board decided to stage a series of mass actions to air their concerns.

In his first letter to the council, coursed through Vice Mayor Ceasar Ian Acenas, Yap had enumerated four crucial areas of concern: The closure and rehabilitation of the city dump; establishment of a sanitary landfill; garbage collection and hauling, and ecological solid waste management.

For his part, Acenas told local reporters he had answered Yap’s letter but his reply was inadvertently sent to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.