IT was around 10 in the evening. The vehicle we were in had a problematic airconditioning system, its operation sometimes conking out when it bumps heavily on the road. “Just put the airconditioning system off. Let's open the windows,” my wife said as we headed for the part of the Cebu South Coastal Road that traverses the South Road Properties (SRP). The smell of trash assaulted our nostrils near the portion of the SRP being developed by Filinvest Land Inc.
It was 2012 all over again. I was invited to speak on editorial writing to University of Cebu students at its campus in Mambaling. That was the first time I visited the place and was surprised at how developed it was. Then the smell of trash wafted inside. “This is what we have been enduring here,” a faculty member, who noted my seeming discomfort, said. “We're near the Inayawan landfill.”
Prior to that, I already heard of complaints about the continued use of the dump site, but that was mostly from residents of Barangay Inayawan. I frequented the place and saw the damage wrought on the road and the hazard posed on the residents by spilled trash resulting from the daily transport of garbage from the barangays. Of course, there was the odor.
Those problems didn't go away even after former mayor Michael Rama ordered the dumping of the city's trash to a private landfill in Consolacion town and using the Inayawan facility as a mere “transfer station” where small barangay dump trucks bring the trash and transfer these to the bigger City Hall dump trucks that would bring the garbage to the private landfill. The problems were solved only after Rama fully closed the Inayawan dump site last year.
But Mayor Tomas Osmeña, Rama's bitter political rival, had the Inayawan facility reopened several days after he assumed the post on June 30. Now the smell, and the complaints regarding the dump site's operation, are back.
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I always have high regards for people and organizations that advance causes, whether these are about politics or about the environment.
There was a time in Cebu when some advocates for the environment invited controversies because of their posture on some government projects. They were most vociferous when Gwendolyn Garcia was the governor, opposing her support for coal-fired power plants and even the purchase of the Balili property in Naga City. I either supported them or made sure I didn't clash with them.
I am actually clueless about the nature of the pro-environment groups that exist in Cebu, but I am sure most of them got funding support from abroad. Which means that the life shelf of these groups is dependent on the support of international funding organizations. I am reminded of this when I read some netizens question the vanishing act of environmentalists following the reopening of the Inayawan dump site. Have pro-environment groups in Cebu closed shop?
I think this is one of the faults of the pro- environment advocacy in Cebu. It is not sustained because the continued existence of pro-environment groups is not assured. I would therefore like to see the day when pro-environment groups are created based on the intense belief in the cause by their officers and members.
Having said that, I would echo the question of netizens. Where are these pro-environment groups when you need them? Sad.
(khanwens@gmail.com/ twitter: @khanwens)