Environment Secretary Gina Lopez INQUIRER PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
ENVIRONMENT Secretary Gina Lopez has thrown her support behind President Duterte’s plan to probe local government executives for their failure to rid their respective areas of mounting piles of trash.
Apparently dismayed over dirty cities and municipalities, Mr. Duterte last week announced that he would create an investigating body to look into the use of the intelligence and discretionary funds of local officials, because this could have been used for garbage management.
In a statement on Monday, Lopez said she would also look into the compliance or noncompliance of local government units (LGUs) with Republic Act (RA) No. 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
“I understand that cases have been filed against 50 [LGUs] in the Office of the Environmental Ombudsman. If there’s a need to add more, we will do so in order not to cause more suffering to our people due to a dirty environment,” Lopez said.
In February, the National Solid Waste Management Commission filed 50 complaints with the Environment Ombudsman against local executives who failed to implement the 16-year-old solid waste management law.
High time for accounting
“It is high time that local government officials be made accountable, especially now that we are anticipating that La Niña would be bringing excessive rainwater and could put a lot of low-lying areas under water for days,” Lopez said.
In its complaint, the commission accused around 600 officials of 50 LGUs in 13 administrative regions of having “conspired in committing the violations of RA 9003,” chief of them, the operation of illegal dump.
The complaint noted that the local officials had “the mandate to establish policies… having control over the funds of the city.”
Duterte made a similar observation, in a video-recorded statement he made on July 15 at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency office in Davao City.
“Many localities in the country are so dirty and yet the mayors are not doing anything about it,” Duterte said.
“There is trash and garbage around and if you have to wait for the plastic to go inside the drainage every time there’s a downpour and excessive rain water, nagka-clog,” he pointed out.
“I will create a special team. I will review, including your intelligence funds. Those funds are the easiest to put in their pockets. Those mayors who are not performing, you make your city clean and peaceful,” Duterte said.
Meanwhile, Lopez noted that a number of local governments had already banned the use of plastic.
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