By Jigger Jerusalem/PNA
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — Charges will be filed against individuals found to be behind the import of tons of plastic trash in Misamis Oriental, some of which were sent back to South Korea on Sunday.
“Charges will definitely be filed,” John Simon, Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) sub-port collector, said on Tuesday.
Simon said it is now up to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to gather evidence and identify those who will be charged, and for the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to provide the necessary assistance to the investigation.
Sunday’s shipment, consisting of 51 containers — or 1,500 metric tons — of assorted trash, to Pyeongtaek City in South Korea was part of the 6,500 tons of waste that arrived at the MCT in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental in two batches last year.
Verde Soko Philippine Industrial Corp. (Verde Soko), the company that imported the garbage, said the wastes were meant to be used as raw material for its recycling facility inside the Phividec Industrial Estate facility, also in Tagoloan town.
The BOC and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), however, found that Verde Soko failed to comply with the necessary permits.
Simon said the second shipment that arrived in October last year was declared as “plastic synthetic flakes” but contained all sorts of discarded plastic materials.
The reshipment, he said, was realized through a mutual agreement between the South Korean and Philippine governments last month, in which South Korea promised to shoulder all the expenses for the delivery back to the country of origin.
The remaining garbage stored at the Verde Soko facility “will be repacked and treated before re-exportation in the last week of January or first week of February,” he added.
Neil Alburo, Verde Soko president, had earlier assured authorities that they are willing to have the plastic trash shipped back to South Korea.
In a statement recently posted on its website, the South Korean Embassy in Manila said the importation of garbage “had not gone through the proper recycling process.”
Quoting its Ministry of Environment and the Korean Customs Services, the embassy said the tons of garbage were different from its export declaration and that some documents had been forged.
It said measures have been taken by the South Korean government “against related violations of law.”
