Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama gives Colin Rosell, chief of the Department of Welfare for the Urban Poor (DWUP) to help in the evacuation of families living in “danger zone” at the Inayawan landfill.
(CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
Is the relocation of 70 families in the Inayawan landfill site tied to plans for commercial development?
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama yesterday said it was not but that he’s serious about converting the site into a park, and residential and commercial area.
“We will bring tourists to Cebu City… tour the former landfill converted into mixed-use,” Rama said.
Rama said the relocation is mainly intended to ensure the safety of settlers from being buried in a garbage landslide or other disaster.
READ: Mayor’s order: Evacuate all settlers within 24 hours
He said his administration is considering options for better access to the landfill from the South Road Properties and the highway.
“If there will be an opening of the roads, the life of the poor will be better,” Rama told a media forum at City Hall.
Rama said he tasked SRP office head Bo Vasquez to propose designs for bridges from the SRP to the landfill, barangays Pardo and Basak as well as the widening of the access road in Mambaling and Duljo Fatima.
An estuary or body of water separates the landfill from the SRP.
A Korean-based firm earlier submitted an unsolicited proposal to develop the landfill for mixed-use with an eco-park, residential and commercial spaces.
The landfill is the location of towering mounds of city trash as high as 20 meters like Metro Manila’s Smokey Mountain.
A strong sea breeze carries the stench of garbage across the SRP where a mall and condominiums are being constructed.
Rama said he wanted to start the development within his term but didn’t say exactly when.
READ: 10 Inayawan families evacuate to school for now
With the Jan. 15 closure of the landfill, the city will have to be strict about solid waste management and its no-segregation-no-collection policy .
Cebu City continues to hauling its 400 tons of daily garbage to to a private landfil in Consolacion town, which the mayor said helps the town and other localities willing to accommodate the city’s garbage for a fee.
“In countries that I visited like Japan and South Korea, there is no landfill within their cities. In dealing with our garbage problem, I believe that LGUs (can earn from our garbage). In that way, we in Cebu City are rich and we help others be rich (by paying for our garbage),” Rama said.