SRP DUMPSITE. The garbage truck of Barangay Lahug still dumps its collected trash at the South Road Properties (SRP) transfer station at 6:44 p.m. of Dec. 27, 2016, because the workers of the new-hired garbage-hauling company were already done for the day earlier in the afternoon, according to a city worker manning the SRP dumpsite. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)
City starts taking garbage out of South Road Properties. But the hauling fee is higher than what was paid during the Rama administration, says Councilor Joel Garganera
Here’s one good news: The tons of trash that have accumulated at the South Road Properties (SRP) are now being taken out and moved to a dumping area in Compostela town.
The bad news is that some of the barangay garbage trucks still dump their trash in SRP even up to last night, unaware that they can no longer dump their trash at the SRP transfer station.
With the agreement between a private service provider and the Cebu City government made official yesterday, the transfer of trash accumulated in SRP also started yesterday morning, according to Roberto Cabarrubias, chief of the Department of Public Service (DPS).
Cabarrubias said four dump trucks owned by the service provider, Jomera Services, transported garbage from SRP to Compostela, 25.3 kilometers north of Cebu City. (The dump trucks are going to travel 10 more kilometers, or a total of 35 km. from SRP to the new dumpsite via the north coastal road.)
‘Kataw-anon’
However, Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera, who heads the City Council’s environment committee, found something “funny” with the deal reached between Cebu City and Jomera Services, a company that Cabarrubias said he only knew as having a mining operation in Surigao province.
GARGANERA
“Kataw-anon. Kataw-anon ang arrangement nila (Funny. Their arrangement is funny). We now pay P1,495 per ton of garbage dumped in a landfill. It will cost P20 million to P50 million (a year) if you plan to administer this every day. You do the mathematics. And he (Cebu City Mayor Osmeña) has only P9.2 million as budget,” Garganera told Cebu Daily News.
The City Council earlier authorized Osmeña to use P9.2 million in unspent funds to pay a private hauler that will collect and send elsewhere the city’s garbage for up to 12 days.
Cabarrubias, on Monday, said that Jomera Services (not Jumera Services as he earlier reported) gave the lowest bid and was awarded the contract. But he did not say who the other bidders were.
Garganera, however, noted that the total tipping fee was “relatively cheaper” during the administration of former mayor Michael Rama, with 34 barangays of the city’s North District paying only P750 per ton of garbage hauled. The remaining 46 barangays of Cebu City’s South District paid P1,500 per ton of garbage due to the more than 20-km. distance from the south portion of Cebu City to Consolacion town.
“This time, it’s a fixed cost,” he said.
City officials earlier said that the P1,495 hauling fee will include the fuel cost, the maintenance cost for the equipment and the salaries of loaders or garbage collectors.
Last Dec. 23, the Cebu City Council granted to Osmeña the authority to sign an emergency contract with a private hauler to solve the city’s issue on garbage disposal in the wake of the Dec. 15 order of the Court of Appeals 19th Division to close the Inayawan landfill.
Observer
The Inayawan landfill, which was shut down during the Rama administration, was reopened after Osmeña took office in July, as he deemed the agreement between the Rama administration and the contractor who owned the dumpsite in Consolacion anomalous since there were no contracts between the two entities.
Garganera yesterday said that even as there are questions that should be raised in the city’s contract with Jomera Services, he decided to “only observe the directions” of the temporary solution the city government has found in addressing the city’s problem on solid waste management.
“Kataw-anon gyud ilang gibuhat (What they did is funny). But anyway, I haven’t really focused on this one… For me, the Environment Monitoring Board (EMB), for sure, has been monitoring them (Jomera Services). EMB was ordered by the court ( CA) to monitor (the compliance to stop dumping in Inayawan) so I’ll just observe them,” he said.
He also said it is now the responsibility of Jomera to ensure that the dumping of trash at SRP will finally stop and for the same company to collect the city’s garbage at the barangay level before dumping them in Compostela.
Still dumping in SRP
However, most drivers of city-owned and barangay-owned garbage trucks said they have not received any notifications or instructions from their respective superiors to stop dumping garbage at SRP.
The transfer station at SRP. (CDN FILE PHOTO)
Five six-wheeler trucks and barangay-owned dump trucks continued to unload waste at the SRP transfer station as of yesterday evening. Cabarrubias said Jomera Services, which he said operates a mining company in Surigao province, has set Dec. 31 as their target date for clearing out all garbage from SRP. About 20 dump trucks will also arrive in Cebu from Surigao tomorrow morning to hasten the hauling processes.
As of 5:43 p.m. yesterday, only a small amount of trash was cleared from the transfer station at SRP, and no significant change and decrease on the amount of trash gathered still being dumped on the site.
Henry Gabutan, an on-site facilitator employed by the Cebu City government to oversee the garbage trucks unloading waste, told CDN that as of 4 p.m. yesterday, the four dump trucks owned by Jomera Services have not returned to the temporary transfer station to haul more garbage out of the area.
“They were already here hauling garbage out very early in the morning, probably around dawn. I reckon they just did it (hauling) half-day, and will only resume tomorrow,” Gabutan said.
Cabarrubias also said that with only four dump trucks hauling garbage out of SRP on the first day of 12 days, “there is no significant decrease in the amount of garbage volume” in the area.
“We already talked with the representative (Myra Lapitan) of Jomera. She told me they promised to clear the garbage in SRP before New Year or on December 30. And I expect with the arrival of 20 more (trucks), we can see some changes,” he stated in Cebuano.
Jomera who?
However, some were not satisfied with this “good news” of finally getting rid of the trash in SRP.
Questions were also raised on the legitimacy of the operations, and requests for city officials to show the signed contract were not answered. In an interview over Cebu-based radio station dyAB, Ronald Malacora, chief of Cebu City’s Department of General Services and in-charge of the bidding process of the private hauler, assured they already signed the contract and purchase order, but failed to present the physical copy and excused himself out of the interview.
“Dili pa nako mapakita run kay busy ko (I cannot show it right now because I’m busy),” he told the reporters and audience of dyAB Cebu.
Hours prior to the dyAB interview, CDN also tried to reach Malacora to ask permission in obtaining a copy of the “signed” contract and purchase order but to no avail. His executive assistants reasoned out that he “was in an important meeting and cannot be called to excuse himself out.”