Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival refuses to budge. As far as he is concerned, the City Government will not even consider waste-to-energy technology as an alternative to address the city’s mounting garbage problem.
His reasons: environmental concerns as well as the lack of clear national regulations.
But here’s the thing. Cebu City has 30 days to temporarily dump its garbage in Consolacion after the landfill in Binaliw has been ordered shut by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
By ruling out one very viable option, the mayor has placed Cebu between a rock and a hard place. And the clock is ticking.
“We are being pushed to decide fast because of the garbage problem, but local governments cannot just jump into technologies that are still controversial in the Philippines. We need DENR to tell us what is acceptable, safe and sustainable,” he told the local media on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026.
I hate to point it out, but the very agency that he is relying on to help steer the City out of this difficult predicament is the very agency that is partly to blame for the tragic landfill landslide in Binaliw — a disaster that has already claimed 30 lives, with six others still buried under the rubble.
After all, the DENR was charged with monitoring the facility, which had been plagued with controversies since 2017. The Binaliw facility was supposed to be a materials recovery facility — meaning it was designed to sort recyclables — before mutating into a full-scale landfill with mountains of trash.
City Councilor Joel Garganera pointed out that the DENR, specifically its Environmental Management Bureau, “did not do its job” regarding safety compliance and geotechnical assessments. He explained that the local government only handles waste collection and traffic outside the landfill. When the garbage enters the facility, that falls under the DENR’s jurisdiction.
I fully agree with the councilor, but the matter is like beating a dead horse. The tragedy is more than a week old. As for the six others who have yet to be recovered, I hate to say it, but the chances of finding them alive are close to nil, regardless of what City Councilor Dave Tumulak said.
And I know Tumulak meant well, but wishing for a miracle that there would be survivors among the six, despite insurmountable odds, is — how shall I put it delicately — almost irresponsible. Although, I would be more than happy to be proven wrong on this account.
At any rate, Cebu City is back on the world stage because of the fatal collapse in Binaliw. And no, it doesn’t help when outsiders start wagging their “I-told-you-so” fingers at the city and its residents.
The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights, which probably never heard of the Binaliw landfill before the collapse, issued a statement claiming the incident “did not come as a surprise.”
To be honest, I never knew that the garbage mound in Binaliw was almost 20 stories high. But even if I did know, I would have thought that the operator and the DENR were on top of things because the facility remained open.
In hindsight, the September earthquake and the November typhoon probably did have major roles in the tragedy, but the Binaliw landfill was furthest from everyone’s minds when the tremor shook the island and the flash floods swept away homes.
For that group to insinuate that the incident was inevitable does nothing to ease the pain of the grieving relatives. Quite the opposite.
Right now, the people’s spirits are being buoyed by the Sinulog and Fiesta Señor fervor. But when the excitement dies down, and when everyone has returned to their old routine, the issue is sure to haunt the administration of Mayor Archival.
Especially when the garbage starts to pile up by the roadside and the smell of decay wafts through the city air.