BARANGAYS can resume disposing of their garbage in the transfer station in Barangay Inayawan, Cebu City before the end of this month.
Department of Public Services (DPS) head John Jigo Dacua said a P405 million budget had been allocated for garbage collection in 2021.
He said the contract between the City Government and the operator of the transfer station ended in the second week of December 2020 as the budget intended for it had all been utilized.
Dacua’s office is now working on the renewal of the contract.
The termination had inconvenienced barangays and the public, prompting Inayawan Barangay Captain Kirk Bryan Repollo to file a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman against Dacua and Mayor Edgardo Labella over the non-collection of garbage.
However, Dacua pointed out that barangays are responsible for collecting their own garbage, especially if the garbage is in the interior portion of the barangay.
“He (Repollo) knows that it is the barangay’s responsibility because, for the longest time, the DPS has only been collecting garbage along the main road,” Dacua said in Cebuano.
Dacua said he had anticipated the previous budget to be used up by last December, but it was too late for a supplemental budget as the annual budget for 2021 was about to be approved during that time.
“That’s why amo lang sa gyu’ng giantos ang pila ka semana nga ang DPS lang jod ang gatrabaho (the DPS has endured several weeks of collecting garbage),” Dacua said.
While the transfer station in Inayawan is closed, garbage has been disposed of at the sanitary landfill in Barangay Binaliw.
Dacua said they’ve deployed 25 garbage trucks to collect garbage along the main roads and even in some inner portions of some barangays.
He said he is in close contact with barangays in case they need help transporting garbage to the Binaliw landfill. He said they’ve extended the same assistance to Inayawan.
Of the city’s 80 barangays, only Inayawan has filed legal action over the matter, he said.
“We’ve never neglected Repollo’s barangay. In fact, we sent trucks to Inayawan to collect garbage,” Dacua said in Cebuano.
Repollo filed his complaint before the anti-graft office on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021, against Dacua and Labella for their alleged failure to implement provisions of Republic Act (RA) 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, and the General Welfare clause under RA 7160, or the Local Government Code. (JJL)