Drive vs corruption, trash top SBMA tasks

DIÑO

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—President Duterte and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) are studying how the remaining 15 containers carrying garbage illegally shipped from Canada would find their way out of Subic port, if not of the country, new SBMA Chair Martin Diño said.

Diño, who assumed his post on Monday, succeeded Roberto Garcia as chair. But Garcia remained SBMA administrator pending the appointment of his replacement.

“I’m immediately relaying this [Canadian trash issue] to the President because these [containers] should be returned [to Canada],” Diño said during a news conference here.

But he said his transition team had laid down action plans for a situation where the government would opt not to ship the trash back to Canada.

Energy source

“Since we’re tapping renewable sources of energy as part of our long-range program here, we’re considering converting [the Canadian trash] into energy,” he said. He did not give any more details about this proposal.

On June 30, a Manila Regional Trial Court ordered 50 40-foot containers carrying assorted plastic materials consigned to Chronic Plastics Inc. to be shipped back to Canada at their importer’s expense.

These containers have been parked at the Manila port. In August 2014, 15 of these containers were taken to the Subic port.

Garcia has asked the Bureau of Customs to remove the containers from this free port but the agency has yet to act on it.

In his address during the turnover ceremony at the Subic Bay Exhibition and Convention Center, Diño said he would make this free port “the best in East and Southeast Asia” by getting rid of corruption among its ranks and making it a business-friendly economic zone.

“Mark this as a new beginning for SBMA. There will be changes to make it a better free port zone. We will fight graft and corruption, smuggling and red tape,” he said.

Diño, former chair of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), said he would also help local government officials fight illegal drugs and criminality in their communities.

“I’ve been helping our President in the last three months in his fight against illegal drugs, criminality and corruption in the government. I’ll be working with you to make this [campaign] a success,” he told officials from Zambales and Bataan provinces and Olongapo City who attended the ceremony.

Diño withdrew his candidacy for president in the May 2016 elections and named Mr. Duterte, then Davao City mayor, as the substitute standard bearer of the PDP-Laban.