Mayor orders search for 2 who dumped garbage

This photo of a boy dumping trash at a beach in Moalboal town, southern Cebu has spread on Facebook.. (Photo from FB account BU kool)

The search is on for a boy and his “boss” who were photographed dumping garbage into the sea near a beach resort in Moalboal town, southern Cebu last Monday.

Several photos uploaded on the Facebook account of Alex Banaag II showed the unidentified minor in a purple shirt hauling a large rattan basket from a beachfront cottage to the shore.

Banaag narrated in the post that he and his friends were enjoying a dip at the Basdaku Resort in barangay Saavedra on Monday when the boy dumped a basket of garbage into the sea.

The boy promptly stopped what he was doing and left after a beachgoer accosted him. But he returned with his “boss” who also dumped two more batches of trash.

One photograph showed several dried coconut husks, plastic bags, and bottles floating along the shore. The photos, which were  uploaded in the afternoon of the same day, went viral online after it caught the ire of many netizens.

Mayor Inocentes Cabaron has instructed Barangay Captain Susan Nuevo of Saavedra to search and identify the two perpetrators, whom he suspected to be vendors along the sandbar.

“Ginadili gyud ang paglabay og basura sa dagat sa local, provincial, national… bisan pa man sa international,” the mayor told Cebu Daily News over the phone. (Dumping trash into the sea is not allowed locally and elsewhere and even abroad.)

Since one of the two is a minor, the mayor said only the adult will be penalized.

Cabaron said he will make sure to impose the penalty provided in the law to avoid similar incidents.