40 barangays non-compliant with ‘no segregation’ policy

Cebu City’s Cenro head tags undisciplined garbage truck drivers, equipment lack

The Cebu City government will try to address the lack of discipline among drivers of garbage collectors and lack of equipment as a way to help half of the 80 barangays of the city to become compliant with the “No Segregation, No Collection” policy.

This developed after Nida Cabrera, City Environmental and Natural Resources office head (Cenro), said in an interview on Wednesday that 50 percent of the city’s barangays are non-compliant with the “No Segregation, No Collection” policy, which was strictly reimplemented about a month ago.

Based on assessments of CCENRO, the households are compliant with segregating their garbage but they have problems with the garbage collection process.

“So far our problem is only on the garbage collections. We observed that all households are segregating. But we have problems in terms of collections kay dili regular ang atong collections kay naay mga barangays nga maguba ang truck, naa say uban nga tungod sa kadako sa barangay, ang ilang equipment dili makakaya,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera said Barangay Luz is the most non-compliant barangay in terms of garbage collections.

Generating at least 18 tons of garbage a day, Barangay Luz has only three garbage trucks that can carry three tons of garbage per trip.

But due to inadequate equipment and lack of discipline among the drivers and garbage collectors, Cabrera said the garbage could not be collected on time which is the major concern of the 50 percent of barangays (or at least 40 of the 80 barangays of the city) that are non-compliant with the policy.

“The Solid Waste Management Board (SWMB) will assess the non-compliant barangays and recommend to the mayor aron matabangan og kolekta sa private garbage trucks. After our assessment this week, the board will recommend to the mayor what barangays need help in terms of their collections,” she said.

“Aside from limited ang resources sa barangay in terms of equipment, we also have a problem sa mga tawo nila. Naay mga trucks nga kausa ra mangolekta in a day. Sayo sila naka-dump didto sa transfer station, but dugay kaayo sila mobalik. Nagstand-by ra sila didto,” Cabrera added.
Currently, the city has 18 private trucks intended to help in the collection of garbage in the city.

She said the SWMB is coming up with a garbage collection system to address the recurring issues of non-compliant barangays.

Furthermore, Cabrera pointed out that most of these uncollected garbage came from the presence of “hot spots” in the interior barangays.
Hot spots are areas where a large volume of unsegregated garbage are piled.

On the data shown by Cabrera to Cebu Daily News, Barangay Sambag l turned out to be the most compliant barangay with 24 compliant sitios out of 28.

Barangay Labangon, on the other hand, is the least compliant among the 80 barangays. Out of the 48 sitios, only 14 sitios have segregated their garbage.

Cabrera also said that if the measures implemented would still not work on these non-compliant barangays, then they might be fined at least P50,000.

Cabrera cited Republic Act 9003 and Cebu City ordinances 1361 and 2031 penalizing habitual violators of the garbage segregation policy with imprisonment from one to six months.

For household violators, a citation ticket will be issued with a P500 fine for the first offense, second is P1,000 and the third offense is P3,000.
Community service will be required for residents who cannot afford to pay the fine.

The violators will be given seven days to settle their penalties at CCENRO.

Furthermore, garbage truck drivers and collectors who will collect unsegregated garbage will be fined the same amount.

Cabrera said next week, the names of the compliant and non-compliant barangays will be posted on plywood-sized bulletin boards in front of the Cebu City Hall building and Fuente Osmeña Circle.

She said non-compliant barangays will be issued summons to explain their inability to comply with the city’s garbage policies.

CCENRO Operations Head Joelito Baclayon said the Environmental Management Bureau in Central Visayas (EMB-7) will directly file charges to the barangays if their non-compliance to the garbage policy will not be resolved.

Aside from that, non-compliant barangays will also be fined P50,000, Baclayon said.