Labella: P65M to spend on solving city’s garbage disposal problem

Garbage is seen dumped at the back of Fort San Pedro in Cebu City in this June 2019 photo. The city government acted promptly on this last June and cleaned up this pile of garbage. | CDNDigital file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella said that the garbage of the city would be taken cared off despite the cancellation of the city’s contract with the Binaliw Landfill developer, ARN Central Waste Management Inc., and the ending of the contract with private hauler, Jomara Konstruct Corp, on July 20.

The mayor said that with the cancellation of the contract with the Binaliw landfill, the city would have in its treasury P65 million to spend on the disposal of the city’s garbage.

The city opted to cancel the contract with ARN because of the unresolved environmental and legal issues or permits by the landfill.

Read more: Cebu City cancels contract with Binaliw landfill developer

The rebidding of the budget has been opened to other private haulers on Thursday, July 18, and will undergo the bidding process once again, with the contract going to the lowest bidder.

“There is really no problem with our garbage collection. In fact, we have friends who committed to help the City Government continue the collection in the meantime that we are still on the bidding process,” he said.

Labella will also have a meeting with the chiefs of the 80 barangays in the city on July 24 to discuss garbage collection, which he said should not be hampered by recent events.

Read more: Jomara gets Cebu City’s garbage-hauling contract

The city government has an existing contract with Jomara to collect the city’s garbage and to whom lies the responsibility to find a final disposal site.

If Jomara will find it hard to look for a final disposal site, the ARN has allowed the private hauler to dump inside the Binaliw landfill temporarily.

This, despite the city government cancelling the P65 million waste disposal contract that was awarded to ARN during the previous administration.

Read more: City Health to send team to assess health issues caused by Binaliw landfill

“If Jomara cannot really find the final disposal site, we will allow them to dispose garbage in Binaliw, but they are not allowed to accept garbage from other local government units. I cannot really allow Binaliw to operate as a landfill because the health concern is of general welfar,e and the area is really not fitted (for it). There are also 39 violations cited by different agencies involved,” Labella said.

The mayor pointed out that the original application of ARN was for a waste-to-energy facility and material recovery facility and not as a landfill, and the management needs to address this. 

In previous statements, ARN said that they were complying with the permits requested by the Environment Management Bureau in Central Visayas (EMB-7) including their lack of permit for a waste recovery facility. /dbs