THREE barangay councilors in Cebu City are facing charges for failing to implement environmental laws.
These councilors are Cecile Alicaya of Barangay Duljo Fatima, David Susara of Barangay Guadalupe and Lanny Vic Fajardo of Basak San Nicolas. All of them are the chairpersons of the committee on environment in their respective barangay councils.
In an interview yesterday, City Environmental Sanitation Enforcement Team (Ceset) Head Grace Luardo said they filed a case against the barangay councilors because they failed to implement City Ordinance (CO) 2031, which mandates the “no segregation, no collection” policy as well as Republic Act (RA) 9003, otherwise known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
“Kita jud ta sa ilang barangay nga less ang ilang (councilors) pag-kooperar, pagpaningkamot nga ma-implement ang mga balaud. Daghan gihapon kaayo ug unsegregated wastes (We can really see in their barangays less cooperation and efforts by councilors to implement the law. There are still plenty of unsegregated waste),” she said.
Citation tickets
Luardo said Ceset already issued citation tickets to the said councilors last April, but since they saw no improvement in the implementation of environmental laws, they decided to file cases against them last May.
The case was filed before the Cebu City Prosecutors Office.
Luardo said this is the first time Ceset filed a case against barangay officials.
She said their move serves as a warning to barangay officials that they are serious in implementing CO 2031 and RA 9003.
Luardo then asked the barangay officials in all the 80 barangays of the city to comply with the provision of the environmental laws.
“Kung pwede mag-house-to-house sila aron ingnon ang mga tawo nga mag-segregate. Maka-house-to-house man gani ta during election, manuktok ta sa ilang mga balay, so buhaton sad unta nila na (If they can visit the houses just to tell people to segregate. They can even go house-t-house during election, knock on houses, so they should also do that this time),” she said.
Responsibility
Asked why they did not include the barangay captain as respondents of the case, Luardo said it is the chairman of the barangay council’s committee on environment who have the bigger task of enforcing environmental laws.
The City has been strictly implementing again the “no segregation, no collection” policy last March 1.
The City initially enforced the policy in April 2011, following the closure of the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill in December 2010, it slowly died down because the participation of the barangays dwindled.