Landfill law violation: Cure seen in amendment

LEGAZPI CITY—If you can’t comply with the law, amend it.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said this could be the solution to the failure of more than 500 local officials to heed the law requiring local governments to operate sanitary landfills and which bans open dumps.

Five towns and a city in Albay are among 50 local governments facing charges for operating open dumps in violation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (Republic Act No. 9003), a 15-year-old law that makes it a crime for local governments to operate open dumps.

The National Solid Waste Management Commission (NWSMC), an office under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that oversees implementation of the law, has charged at least 500 local officials early this month with violating the law for operating open dumps in their towns and cities.

Salceda defended the officials, saying complying with RA 9003 is tough for towns and cities that do not have funds to build and operate sanitary landfills.

“The level of compliance being demanded by the law from (local governments) is ab initio (from the start) not achievable,” said Salceda in a statement on his Facebook page.

Salceda, now candidate for representative of Albay, said he would push for amendments to RA 9003 if he wins a seat in the House.

The proposed amendment, he said, would provide the DENR with funds to help local governments build and operate sanitary landfills.

“With so much national roads now completed, even widened, there exists now a fiscal space for this national imperative,” he said.

In an earlier interview, Roberto Sheen, Environment Management Bureau (EMB) Bicol regional director, said among those facing charges in the Ombudsman are officials in the towns of Daraga, Camalig, Guinobatan, Polangui and Tiwi, and Tabaco City in Albay.

Sheen said NSWMC found that the local governments there had failed to comply with RA 9003 despite repeated warnings.

The costs of building and maintaining sanitary landfills, however, may be too steep for these local government units.

Rudolph Lita, chief of the solid waste and local government relations section of the regional EMB, said a local government would need a minimum of P25 million, or P5 million per hectare, to build a Category 1 sanitary landfill with a leachate pond and wastewater treatment facility.

Add to that the cost of operating and maintaining the landfill.

Salceda urged the EMB to issue a set of criteria in determining compliance.

“This exposes noncomplying (local governments) to disproportionate shame at this stage of the political season,” said Salceda. “Shame one, shame all,” he said.

While the Albay provincial government has been helping local governments comply with RA 9003, Salceda said they have seen little or no support from the national government “given the cost of environmental compliance in the middle of so many imposed mandates devolved without the corresponding transfer of resources.”