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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Roxas: NRDC's offer
By Fred Roxas
GARBAGE collection and disposal of community waste is a festering problem in urban centers. In Angeles City for insurance, some people set fire to a huge city dump site and the resulting smoke and foul smell arising from it punished over 30,000 residents in 12 barangays including the central city area.
No one has claimed responsibility for this as city officials remained quiet after the toxic pollution by air caused widespread suffering among affected residents. It appears the Cauayan dumpsite was already overfilled, and the quick solution was to burn the waste. Strong monsoon winds swept the massive smoke fog to the city for six hours. The smell was unendurable that most well-off families went to San Fernando hotels for the night, while most residents evacuated their residences.
Was the dumpsite burning deliberate? Opponents of Mayor Tarzan Lazatin would not sound malicious but pointed to the city hall. Earlier the mayor, a newspaper reported, was proposing a solution to garbage woes. He offered his 10-hectare land property for use as an alternative garbage site. Residents reported there is a need to have a new dumpsite even if it will be purchased from properties of the mayor.
Mayor Lazatin should order a tight watch over the dumpsite. The next burning toxic smoke may be attributed to the creation of a need for a new site, not necessarily within the property of the mayor. It will require P8 million to process a dumpsite, an engineer reported.
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All principal cities and capital towns of Central Luzon are reeling under the heavy yoke of traffic problems, which adversely affect local business and commerce and caused of variety of health problems to the populace.
The number one headache of the city government of Angeles, for instance, is the daily traffic gridlock in the business district. The vehicle-congested roads are causing inconvenience to local residents, aggravating the air pollution, and using expensive fuel uselessly.
Ineffective local governance for many years, with undisciplined drivers, uncontrolled entry of all types of public utility vehicles and police ineptitude during busy hours contribute to the great distress suffered by motorists and residents.
Large part of the blame goes to the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) of the DOTC, which has been issuing certificates of public conveyances to public utility vehicles (PUVs) indiscriminately. Regardless of the holding capacity of street conditions in the city, the LFRTB continues to hand out certificates and consequently the LTO registers the vehicles, for the revenues they generate, and for possible illegal consideration.
Ineffective city officials had failed to prevent this practice, and in fact, contribute to the traffic problem by allowing tricycles for hire to ply all city routes. The ubiquitous pedicabs proliferate and clog all principal roads in most cities and provinces. Corrupt leaders at first initiated an "off-limits" regulations on PUVs coming outside Angeles limits. This lessened the entry of for-hire vehicles upon which the local officials for an unreceipted fee and partly for political objectives, opened the gate valve for unregulated "migration" of out-of-town vehicles.
This explains why residents cannot fail to see so many units of public utility jeepneys (PUJs) in a single-color scheme in one route that was already over-saturated with the vehicles. As long as the PUJ owners come across the amount demanded by approving authorities, they are given the franchise route.
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In all cities of Region 3, from Tarlac, Olongapo, Cabanatuan, Balanga, San Fernando and Angeles, the motorized pedicabs have become a monstrous road problem. These are also sources of "tong" money for enforcers who get their share of protection fee from association leaders. The police seldom arrest violators, you know why.
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The Natural Resources Development Corp. (NRDC) has proposed a business arrangement with the Pampanga provincial government to manage quarry operations in the province with a guaranteed revenue of P36 million "annually".
The offer was made by NRDC chief Brig Gen. Victor Corpus during a special meeting with the Pampanga Provincial Board at the capitol in the City of San Fernando presided by Vice Governor Yeng Guiao. The offer was very much lower than the NRDC average collection of P140 million annually in Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales during the time of deposed President Estrada. Some provincial board members questioned the legality of the proposal of NRDC, which is the corporate marketing arm of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The offer of NRDC was based on the assumption that an average of 1,000 trucks of lahar and sand materials are being hauled in Pampanga everyday. However, some observers said that more than 2,000 trucks or even close to 3,000 trucks were being hauled from Pampanga quarry sites daily.
(January 19, 2005 issue)
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