By Ernie Esconde/Philippine News Agency
LIMAY, Bataan — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said it will issue a cease-and-desist order against an open dumpsite in a village here after inspection Wednesday.
“Para hindi madagdagan ang basura, bibigyan natin ng cease and desist order upang mapigilan ang pagtatapon dito (In order not to have more wastes, we will issue a cease and desist order to stop the dumping here),” DENR Undersecretary Benny Antiporda said.
“If you will notice sa bandang likod ang Manila Bay at dito punung-puno ng basura (Manila Bay is at the back and here, there are lots of garbage). This is another Smokey Mountain in the making. Ang pinagkaiba lang hindi sinusunog ang basura dito pero pinapabayaang ganiyan (The difference is that the wastes here are not being burned but just left like that),” he said.
Pointing to the garbage heap, Antiporda said: “Mapapansin din natin ang buong kabundukan ay napakaganda pero sinira ng mga basurang ito (We can notice the beautiful mountain but was this garbage dump ruins the view).”
“Hindi papayagan ni Secretary Cimatu na ganito ang mangyari. Ang creek ginawa nilang kanal. Saan napupunta ang tubig, hindi nila ma-explain. (Secretary Cimatu will not allow this to happen. The creek turned into a canal. They cannot explain where the water goes. Sa theory namin, (In our theory), it ends up in the river,” the DENR official said.
He said that based on the inspection, garbage at the Limay Solid Waste Management Processing Facility are products of years of dumping.
“We will conduct immediate investigation. Year 2015 pa lang nagkaroon na ng soft closure and rehabilitation ang lugar na ito. Nagtataka lang po tayo kung bakit nagtuluy-tuloy (there was already a soft closure and rehabilitation in this place in 2015. We are just wondering why it continued),” he said.
Antiporda said they were previously informed that the area was a garbage transfer station but inspection showed that it was an open dumpsite.
He said that wastes are at the foot of the mountains and piled up several stories high.
“Immediately, isu-summon namin ang local government ng Limay para ipaliwanag nila kung bakit nagkaganito (we will summon the local government of Limay to explain why this happened),” he said.
Antiporda said the inspection has no bearing on the elections.
“Wala kaming pakialam sa election. Ang importante sa amin mapangalagaan na tuluy-tuloy ang paglilinis na ginagawa namin sa Manila Bay natin (We do not mind about the election. What is important to us is to continuously do the cleaning of Manila Bay. If there are areas like this na hindi natin pipigilan, hindi magiging successful ang paglilinis natin. Masasayang lang ang malaking halaga na gugugulin (that we do not prevent, the cleaning will not be successful. The big amount of money we are spending will just go to waste),” he said.
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