NESTLED in the mountains of Cebu City, in Sitio Kainsikan, Barangay Binaliw, is an operating sanitary landfill.
In May 2018, the City Council junked then ARN Builders’ application for a special permit to develop a 1.7 hectare-property in the area into a material recovery facility and a dumping ground for the metro’s garbage.
But that was when Barug PDP-Laban dominated the council and an ally was at the helm of the barangay.
Things changed when the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK) seized control after the barangay and Sangguniang Kabaatan elections and when 49 of the 80 winning barangay captains came from BOPK, Binaliw included.
The project was given the green signal despite objections that its location is not far from the Central Cebu Protected Landscape Area.
ARN Builders metamorphosed into ARN Central Waste Management Inc., which, coincidentally, won the P65-million contract for the disposal of Cebu City’s waste from July to December 2019 after placing the lowest bid of P647.59 per ton of garbage disposed.
The facility, though, was forced to open its doors early when the private landfill in the northern town of Consolacion was ordered closed for rehabilitation last month after a man was killed there during a landslide.
Complaints against the “foul smell” and the “swarm of flies” that some people said were caused by the landfill’s operation prompted the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) 7 to inspect the facility last May 29, 2019.
EMB 7 issued a “notice of violations” against the Binaliw landfill because management failed to regularly submit reports on the status of its operation, which is a requirement, and because some trucks on their way to the landfill spilled some of their contents along the way.
Despite insisting it wasn’t their job to monitor haulers, Sherwin Santos of ARN said they have already coordinated with and required them to upgrade their trucks.
Viviane Ruste, the barangay captain of Binaliw, scoffed at all the fuss. She said residents didn’t complain about the smell until that fatal incident in Consolacion. She also denied the presence of a “swarm of flies” in the area.
Ruste said she was able to confirm that the stench did not come from the landfill because she had gone to visit the facility.
It may be easier to convince the public that ARN is not responsible for the violations but to say a garbage dumping ground does not stink is another matter.