SILOY IS WATCHING: Fort San Pedro is now clean

Fort San Pedro’s garbage has been collected — Top photos show a before the garbage was collected photo and the above photos show the fort with the garbage removed. | Photo grabbed from Mayor Edgar Labella’s facebook page

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The walkway is now visible, the grass looks green and alive, and the monument now towers with pride.

This is how Fort San Pedro, Cebu City’s iconic fortress, looks after the Department of Public Services (DPS) has collected almost 14 tons of garbage from its premises.

CDN Digital, on July 3, 2019, shared photos of the garbage located outside Fort San Pedro, which caught the attention of many netizens.

The photos were taken by Erwin dela Cerna, executive director of Fort San Pedro.

Dela Cerna posted two photos: an old photo that clearly presents a clean historical landmark and a recent photo where piles of garbage were dumped outside this Spanish-era structure.

The issue was brought to the attention of Engineer Joel Biton, DPS head.

READ: Unsightly garbage dumped outside centuries-old Fort San Pedro

Biton then said he would have the matter looked into in order to collect the garbage as soon as possible so the tourist spot would be clean.

Three weeks later, Mayor Edgar Labella posted before and after photos of the fort on his Facebook page showing the “success” of the DPS in clearing the tourist spot of garbage.

In an interview with CDN Digital, Biton said that after confirming the presence of the mounds of garbage in the area, he sent two trucks to collect the trash.

The mounds of garbage, reportedly uncollected for a few months,  filled two big garbage trucks, each with a capacity of seven tons, or a total of 14 tons.

Biton said that because the Fort’s visitors produce so much garbage  in a month, he has assigned a garbage truck to collect the trash once a week to ensure that there would be no mounds of garbage in the site.

“I also set up a monitoring team, mostly street cleaners to report to the DPS if by chance the Fort San Pedro once again accumulates many trash,” said Biton.

Biton said the Fort was  expected to accumulate a lot of garbage because it  is frequented by tourists, and the Plaza Independencia across regularly holds various community events.

However, the mounds of garbage is an eyesore to the tourists and the public, so it has to be removed to maintain the cleanliness and beauty of the place.

Biton said that with a more frequent visits of the garbage truck, he hoped that the Fort would remain “clean and pretty” as it should be.

He also hoped the public would help keep it clean by throwing their garbage at the right bin and avoiding the use of single-use plastic./dbs