Police officers (left) from the Cebu Provincial Public Safety Company help clean the beach, a few hours after the Isla Music Festival 2017. Above, empty bottles are among those left by partygoers on the beach sand of Barangay Pooc in Santa Fe town.
ISLA MUSICFEST GARBAGE
Sacks of garbage collected at the site of the Isla Music Festival 2017 in Barangay Pooc, Santa Fe, Bantayan Island have infuriated a green advocate as he called for organizers to craft clear policies on littering and provide bins for different kinds of wastes on their next events.
Vince Cinches, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace, also called on partygoers or visitors of Island to always be responsible for their trash.
“It is also the obligation of partygoers to keep their trash if there are no bins around and should at least clean after themselves.
The LGU can only provide personnel to pick up collected items. There’s no excuse to litter,” he added.
Cinches said that the garbage during the Holy Week is infuriating, shameful and sad.
He said that for him, it would affirm why the Philippines had ranked third globally in visible ocean pollution.
“It shows that some Cebuanos and Filipinos have an entitlement to think that cleanliness is some other people’s business,” said Cinches.
“The public should know that the garbage they throw everywhere will go back to them as poison, another problem, or affect them somehow negatively. Giunsa kaha ni sila pagpadako sa ilang mga ginikanan nga hugawan man kaayo? What a sad way to practice (being) “stewards of God’s creation” by polluting on a Holy Week,” Cinches told Cebu Daily News.
Controversy
The festival, which had drawn controversy after the parish priest Fr. Roy Bucag of the local church Sto. Niño Roman Catholic
Church, and some residents criticized the timing of the holding of the event, which fell on Holy Week.
Their criticism caused a rift between Fr. Bucag and Mayor Jose Esgana, who allowed the holding of the event in the town.
The music fest, however, pushed through, with Fr. Bucag complaining only about the loud music on Holy Thursday evening to Good Friday dawn.
But on the holding of the main event of the music fest on Sunday dawn, CDN, which dropped by the Sto. Niño Roman Catholic Church at 2 a.m., could hear no loud music at the church coming from the venue.
The church is estimated to be around 500 meters from the venue in Barangay Pooc.
When sought to comment if he would be open for reconciliation with Mayor Esgana, Fr. Bucag said: “Yeah, but in God’s time.”
Group cleanup
Meanwhile, nearly a hundred people made up of 20 organizers from the musicfest, 10 hired local residents, 60 personnel from the Cebu Provincial Public Safety Company and the Sante Fe Police Station started cleaning up the event area at 7 a.m.
Debbie Orellano, one of the organizers, said that they hired the residents to help collect the trash.
A hired local, who refused to be named, however, said that most of the trash they collected were from the partygoers who joined the musicfest.
The group carrying black trash bags collected empty bottles of liquor and beverages, barbecue sticks, plastics and peanut shells along the beach yesterday.
The sacks of trash would be collected by the LGU and would be recycled or treated at the town’s central materials recovery facility.
Niño Mike Torevillas, Sante Fe town paralegal, said everyone had been helping one another and that the town is now the island everyone loved.
“We thank every tourist who visited us. We are grateful. May mga basura which we anticipated. Naay mga irresponsible nga pataka lag labay, but we in Santa Fe are not whiners, we act,” Torevillas added.
The town is also strictly implementing on zero waste.