[] Public hearing is only one source of information about the January 8, 2026 disaster. Among the ways: City Council can form a research group to get the facts in aid of its legislative and oversight function.
[] A special research team in the Sanggunian will have expertise and time that councilors, committees and their consultants usually lack for gathering information.
[] The City Council can collect information from reliable sources, partly by tapping the city's own Department of Public Services and Solid Waste Management Board.
[] Of course, results from DENR's investigation and NBI's inquiry into the criminal aspect may augment City Council's own efforts at fact-finding.
VM OSMEÑA'S 'REJECTION.' The public hearing, required for certain kinds of legislative action, has an important if unwritten purpose. It consults the public, as required by legislative procedure.
Good optics as well for elective officials. The body of councilors in effect says through the public hearing: We're talking with the people, who elected us and whom we'll ask in the next election to vote for us again.
Vice Mayor Tomas Osmeña has "rejected" a City Council investigation into the January 8, 2026 collapse of the Binaliw landfill, which killed at least 36 people. Won't solve the problem, he says. A complicated thing beyond the ken of non-technical persons.
IMPRECISE TERMS. "Rejection" may not be the precise word in reporting VM Osmeña's reaction to the proposal for City Council investigation. Osmeña is the City Council's presiding officer but not its controller; his BOPK is not the majority there. Not for him to "reject" and "rule out" without a collective decision of the Sanggunian.
The City Council may not call for a full-blown public hearing but it can still make inquiries. Last Wednesday, January 28, in an executive session, the City Council continued its task of trying to find out what can be done to improve its oversight job in solid waste disposal.
News about the routinely closed-door discussion said the councilors learned that failure in oversight could be the reason for the disaster. Still a force majeure or an act of God but with contributory human fault.
FACT-GATHERING. On the apparent confusion of terms, here's the thing: The City Council may decide not to conduct a long, drawn-out investigation. Yet it can still gather facts about the disaster by other means such as:
-- Activating its capacity for research by pooling reliable information from published materials and available direct sources.
-- Securing knowledge and experience of the city's Department of Public Services and Solid Waste Management Board.
-- Tapping the findings, once available, of the investigations conducted separately by DENR or Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the NBI, which will investigate "motu propio," without complaint or request.
GETTING THE FACTS RIGHT IS IMPERATIVE for the City Council to adopt measures to prevent another occurrence.
The City Council -- along with the mayor and the offices of DPS and Solid Waste Management Board -- bears burden of oversight by the LGU or local government unit. The LGU cannot wash its hands of responsibility, despite the administrative function assigned by law to the national agency DENR.
If existing rules are not clear, the "investigation and fact-finding mission" to be conducted by DENR can lead to unambiguous rules.
DENR, NBI TO GO AFTER "RESPONSIBLE PARTIES." DENR -- authorized under Secretary Raphael Lotilla's Special Order #2026-32 dated January 26, 2026 -- has created a "composite team" to lead the probe on the Binaliw tragedy.
The team -- which includes representatives of the civic sector and the academe: Aileen Lucero, coordinator of Ecowaste Solution, and Engr. Janice Jamora, head of Cebu's University of San Carlos College of Engineering -- is primarily tasked "to hold answerable all the responsible parties."
Yet in reaching for that goal, DENR must get the facts that identify not just the erring or negligent persons but also the causes of missteps and omissions. Which information DENR will use in revising the rules governing landfills across the country. Which the City Council may also use in aid of legislation and changes in the LGU's oversight procedure.
PUNITIVE THRUST OF INVESTIGATIONS can be a reason why the vice mayor shuns a City Council investigation.
After all, collapse of the landfill occurred during the watch of the Nestor Archival-Tomas Osmeña administration. Landfill operations, one critic alleges, started in 2017 when Osmeña was mayor (2016 to 2019, followed by two non-BOPK terms). Its problems were raised when Archival was minority leader in the City Council. How much fiscalizing to correct the landfill's defects did the councilor wage at the time?
Neither Archival nor Osmeña would be comfortable with that kind of inquiry in their LGU's legislature.
Emphasis on punishment as deterrent though can't be avoided when the favorite catchphrase of the government is "accountability." DENR would like to see, as the NBI must also want, "responsible persons" to answer for the deaths and injuries, along with severe disruption of garbage collection service in Metro Cebu, caused by the Binaliw disaster.