LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- Councilor Jim Botiwey of La Trinidad is urging chicken dung traders to reveal who they are paying to end questions of corruption.
Botiwey is advocating last week's resolution asking Mayor Greg Abalos to withdraw the administrative order banning the sale, storage, and disposal of chicken dung in the municipality.
Botiwey said "80 percent of the municipality relies on agriculture which uses chicken dung."
He is ready to march on the streets of Shilan with placards, if needed, if Abalos still refuses to heed the council.
Botiwey said he strongly advocates the return of the trade in the municipality but it must be regulated.
Another glitch has hounded the recent Abalos order because the area in Tublay town where the traders were transferred is subject to a boundary dispute.
Councilor Henry Kipas authored a resolution denouncing and opposing the transfer of the dung trade to an area embroiled in a boundary dispute between Tublay and La Trinidad.
The resolution states: "Surprisingly and amazingly we officials are mandated to protect the interest of the municipality, ironically and seemingly the municipal mayor is waiving and giving way to the interest of others."
Kipas tagged the Abalos order to ban the trade as a "unilateral act with no legal basis to impliedly determine the boundary dispute of Tublay and La Trinidad."
The Abalos order has drawn flak from dung stakeholders and the local council meriting three resolutions opposing it and asking him to have it recalled.
Kipas said the municipality earns from the trade as well as being a livelihood for many. "We should regulate the dung trade and just try to put mitigating measures to the trade."