The trash slide at the Binaliw Sanitary Landfill did not only expose waste. It exposed neglect. The mountains of garbage do not collapse overnight. They rise slowly — fed daily by indifference, weak enforcement and a culture that treats the law as optional.
When the waste mass shifted at the sanitary landfill, officials spoke of contingencies, hauling adjustments, and engineering responses. But the real failure was not mechanical. It was administrative. A landfill does not collapse in a vacuum. It collapses after years of tolerated shortcuts.
And yet, we have had a law in place for 26 years. Republic Act (RA) 9003, enacted on Jan. 26, 2001, precisely to prevent this kind of crisis. It was visionary for its time. It decentralized responsibility. It placed solid waste management where it truly begins — at the barangay. But somewhere between legislation and implementation, compliance was only on paper.
The landfill is not the beginning of the problem. We keep reacting at the tail end of the chain — the dumpsite, the hauling trucks, the emergency measures. But RA 9003 is clear: Only residual waste should reach final disposal facilities. Biodegradable waste should be composted. Recyclables should be recovered. Segregation should happen at source.
If these mandates had been strictly implemented, the sanitary landfill would not be receiving the volume it did. The landfill did not fail alone. The system beneath it failed. And that system begins in our barangays.
The unpleasant question: Is it time to strictly impose RA 9003 obligations on barangays and their officials? The honest answer: It is long overdue.
The Barangays are not mere extensions of City Hall. They are political units with defined statutory duties. The law requires them to enforce segregation at source, establish and operate materials recovery facilities (MRFs), conduct sustained education campaigns, penalize non-compliance.
The barangay is responsible for the collection of the segregated biodegradable and recyclable wastes while the city or municipality is responsible for the collection of non-recyclable and special wastes. The law mandates a segregation of solid waste at source and the creation of MRF in every barangay or cluster of barangays. Although the local government units (LGUs) are the primary responsible in the implementation of the law, the participation of the private sector and the community is also encouraged.
The law mandates the LGUs to have environmental programs. For 26 years, enforcement has been selective, inconsistent, or gutless. The result now towers before us — unstable, overflowing, and dangerous.
This is not about scapegoating barangay captains. This is a shared responsibility. The city must ensure proper engineering, planning, and oversight. Haulers must follow protocols. Households must segregate. But barangays cannot continue to say, “It is the city’s problem” because the law says otherwise.
The Binaliw incident may be tragic, but it is also clarifying. It strips away excuses. If Cebu City is serious about reform, this is the moment to audit every barangay’s MRF; enforce segregation without exception; penalize repeated violations; incentivize compliant barangays; and make enforcement visible and consistent.
The move will be unpopular. Discipline always is. But governance is not a popularity contest. It is a responsibility.
The bigger lesson we learned is that we often demand accountability only after something collapses — a bridge, a building, a landfill. But good governance means enforcing the law before disaster forces our hand. RA 9003 has been waiting 26 years to be taken seriously.
The bottom line is that the Binaliw incident is not merely an engineering failure.
It is a governance failure 26 years in the making.
It is about time that barangay officials be reminded that RA 9003 is not a suggestion. It is the law.
In a news report, Cebu City Mayor Nestor Archival appealed for unity and concrete support from the City Council, barangay officials and environmental groups on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, as Cebu City continues to face a 500-ton daily garbage problem.
Archival urged stakeholders to focus on solutions, saying the city remains in “crisis mode” and cannot afford political infighting instead of calling for investigations.
“If you have suggestions, put them on the table. We are one,” the mayor said in a sideline interview during the Usapang Budget Forum on Friday, Feb. 20, at the Department of Education Ecotech Center in Lahug, Cebu City.
He urged both barangay officials and council members: “Help each other, not target each other.”
The mayor said the city generates 500 tons of waste per day but is currently able to directly manage only about 150 tons, leaving around 350 tons that must be hauled and processed elsewhere.
He acknowledged logistical challenges involving truck availability, scheduling and coordination, distance, describing the issue as largely a programming and management concern. He estimated that improved segregation could reduce up to 50 tons per day, around 20 tons from barangay-level biodegradable waste and another 15 to 25 tons from recoverable materials.
Perhaps it took a mountain of garbage sliding down injuring and killings the workers to remind us that laws ignored eventually collapse — just like landfills.