No compromise deal on Inayawan landfill closure

INAYAWAN LANDFILL (CDN FILE PHOTO)

NO compromise agreement was reached on the timetable and plans for the closure of the Inayawan landfill.

Despite their earlier disinterest in sitting down with each other, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and Councilor Joel Garganera met yesterday at the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) 7 office for a mediation with the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).

“You cannot compromise inconvenience. It has to be stopped now. It has also been eight weeks since we passed the resolution in the City Council authorizing him to look for alternative dumping sites for the city’s garbage,” Garganera told reporters in an interview after the mediation. The closed-door mediation started at 10 a.m. and ended at noon.

Garganera said he’s happy that the mayor agreed to sit down with him and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7 and the EMB.
They even shook hands and took photos together with the other attendees of the mediation.

Osmeña was accompanied by former councilor Nida Cabrera who is City Hall’s consultant on environment.

“No further agreement has been reached,” Cabrera said when sought for comment about the mediation.

She said the mayor reiterated his earlier declaration during the Court of Appeals (CA) hearing last October 24 that the city will just continue to dump at the Inayawan landfill until December 31.

Osmeña said this will still be subject to the council’s approval of a budget for the closure and rehabilitation of the facility.

Garganera also said that the mayor brought up again his earlier threat to dump the city’s garbage at the South Road Properties (SRP), at the North Reclamation Area, at the Plaza Sugbo in front of City Hall’s legislative building or at the Malacañang sa Sugbo if ordered to stop dumping at the landfill by the CA.

The mediation was earlier requested by the OSG, which is DENR’s lawyer on the Writ of Kalikasan petition filed by Garganera against the DENR, EMB and Osmeña.

If a compromise agreement had been reached it, would have been honored by the CA justices.

But since no agreement was made, Garganera said they will just extensively exhaust their side and arguments on their petition for a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) against the operation of the Inayawan landfil.

All parties of the case were given 15 days from the October 24 hearing to submit their position papers on the case.

The papers will be made the basis for the CA’s decision on Garganera’s petition.