Subic exec on Canada trash: Nobody is moving

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—A year after 15 containers loaded with trash from Canada arrived at the Subic Bay Freeport as part of efforts to ease congestion in Manila’s busy harbor, these have not moved a bit toward ultimate disposal.

“It’s frustrating that these containers are still here. As I said before, I don’t want them here,” Roberto Garcia, chair of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) which manages the free port, said at a press briefing on Monday.

“There’s no movement … These [containers] have been staying here for a long time now,” he said.

Garcia said he already asked the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to remove the vans, which are part of the 741 shipped here in August last year to help clear Manila’s port area and return these to the national capital.

“Unfortunately, what’s happening now is that nobody wants to make a move because this is a controversial issue. But we made our position very clear—we don’t want the trash here,” he said. He noted that lawyer Ernelito Aquino, BOC Subic district collector, had written Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina about SBMA’s request, but Lina has yet to issue any instruction.

Documents submitted to the Basel Convention secretariat by the Basel Action Network (BAN), a group pressing legal action against Canada, showed that the 103 containers of garbage from Canada that had been left idle in Manila for 757 days since 2013 had cost the government more than P240 million as of July 22.

The Seattle-based BAN computed the amount by multiplying the number of containers and number of days with charterer charge of P2,000 and space rental rate of P1,080 a day.

“The Canadian waste shipment costs P317,240 per day that it remains unclaimed,” one of its documents said.

The document was part of the annexes submitted by Jim Puckett, BAN executive director, in the group’s report, “The Case of Non-Compliance by Canada,” to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. Allan Macatuno and Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon