EMB presentation of a sanitary landfill to city council cancelled

TACLOBAN CITY – The presentation supposed to be made by the Environment Management Bureau (EMB-8) before the members of the city council on the technical aspect of constructing a sanitary landfill was cancelled after members of the majority bloc called for the declaration of adjournment citing that the presence of an EMB official, Maribel Munsayac, was not made known to them and that she was not invited to appear before the regular session.

Councilor Edwin Chua, majority floor leader of city council, stressed that they have not invited Munsayac to make a presentation, adding that national line agencies or any other institution that wishes to conduct presentation to the city council must first send a letter to inform them.

He added that since the session was already adjourned it was up to a council member to stay or not and listen what the EMB official would say.

But Munsayac, who is the regional coordinator of the solid waste management, said that their office received a letter of invitation from the secretariat of the city council asking them to made presentation of the technical aspect of constructing a sanitary landfill.

“I don’t know about it, but we received an invitation, and every time we received invitation from any agency we always take action on it,” Munsayac stressed.

“Even a small barangay when there is a formal invitation we see to it that we grant their request,” she added.

This pronouncement of Munsayac was confirmed by Councilor Jerry “Sambo” Yaokasin, adding that during their previous session, the city council voted unanimously to invite EMB officials to attend and made a presentation on sanitary landfill construction before them.

To recall, the EMB regional office had been calling the attention of city officials to comply with the mandate of RepublicAct 9003(Solid Waste Management Act) mandating all local government units to construct a sanitary landfills and close all open and control dumped sites.

Tacloban is the only city in the region excluding the three newly-created cities that has yet to comply with the construction of a sanitary landfill.

“Even though we lack manpower and with this number of local government units that we need to serve, if our schedule will warrant us, then we will grant their request,” Munsayac answered when she was asked whether she will appear to the city council once their attention is called.

In an earlier interview, city environment and natural resources officer Jonathan Hijada said that the city government is willing to comply RA 9300 adding that they have all the necessary papers.

But what stop the city government to come up with its own sanitary landfill is the huge cost the construction would entail.

The construction of a sanitary landfill is estimated to cost about P40 million.

Hijada had said that the proposed P400 million loan that the city government is planning to secure, P40 million of it is intended to finance the construction of the city’s sanitary landfill at Santo Niño, a northern village of the city.