BACOLOD City Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran urged the barangay officials to intensify their campaign on waste segregation within their respective barangays.
Familiaran, chairman of the Solid Waste Action Team (Swat), said Monday, April 22, the barangay officials should start to educate their constituents to properly dispose their garbage.
“We are intensifying our campaign on waste segregation so we can enforce the “no segregation, no collection” policy once the Cell No.2 at the sanitary landfill in Barangay Felisa will be completed,” he said.
He added it’s part of the main function of the barangay officials to implement the Republic Act (RA) 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.
The Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 provides that local government units shall be primarily responsible for the implementation and enforcement of the provisions of this law within their respective jurisdictions.
Familiaran said after election, they will deploy the solid waste enforcement unit to penalize the violators.
“We will discuss this to Mayor Evelio Leonardia after the election,” he said.
The enforcement unit, which is composed of 200 members, will be dispatched 24 hours a day in 61 barangays.
In 2018, the City Government also implemented the “no segregation, no collection” policy, but the program was a failure because residents did not observe the proper way of disposing garbage.
Familiaran admitted that most of the city residents still do not segregate their wastes.
“Bacolod is still zero in terms of compliance of waste segregation policy,” Familiaran said.
He said that this is a gigantic task and it needs the cooperation of everybody. (MAP)