OUTGOING Butuan City Mayor Ferdinand Amante Jr. faces an environmental complaint in the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly turning a 10-hectare fruit tree nursery into an open dump these past four years.
Over 500 Butuan residents signed the complaint filed in the Office of the Ombudsman for Mindanao on June 23.
They said the dump should be closed as it was prohibited under the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2001, Republic Act No. 9003.
Officials of Barangay Dulag, where the dump is located, passed a resolution on June 20 calling for its closure effective June 30, when Amante steps down.
Amante lost his bid for a third term to construction mogul Ronnie Vicente Lagnada in the May 9 elections.
The complaint said Amante did not hold a public consultation before allowing in 2012 the operation of the dump in what used to be a 10-hectare nursery for fruit trees.
The dump allegedly continued to operate even without an environmental clearance certificate from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Dona Z. Pazzibugan