Pact with Smart mulled for trash collection alerts

The Cebu City Government is mulling entering into a memorandum of agreement with the Smart Telecommunications for a text brigade program on matters concerning the city's "no segregation, no collection policy" in line with the implementation of Republic Act 9003, otherwise known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.

Councilor Nestor Archival, chairman of the council's committee on environmental management, said only Smart Telecom responded to their invitation for a partner communication firm to provide them such a service.

The proposal of Smart provides that concerned citizens can simply text the number 227812 to represent the word basura or garbage and send it to message center number 700 so the city may know places where garbage needs to be collected.

Nevertheless, Archival said there are still some things that need some fine-tuning on how to go about the program that is aimed at strengthening the implementation of the solid waste management law.

The same proposal also provides that it shall be at no cost to the city government and that Smart will even grant the city government a nine-percent commission for every 12,000 hits or text messages coming in within the consecutive three-month period.

Archival said he will present the draft memorandum of agreement to the city's solid waste management board and to the mayor before finally introducing it to the city council for ratification and approval.

Further, Archival revealed that 679 violators of the solid waste management law, both private individuals and juridical entity, have been apprehended by members of the Cebu Environmental Sanitation Enforcement Team since July 1, the first day of the full implementation of R.A. 9003 in the city.

Of the 679, only 55 opted to pay for the P500 administrative fine to avoid the rigors of court litigation should a case be filed against them while 20 others shall be pressed with charges in the court early next week.

The remaining were either "excused" as a sort of warning or given a 7-day grace period by which they could pay the administrative fine to avoid facing charges in court.

Archival said they will soon have an evaluation report and rank the barangays accordingly to find out which among the 54 urban villages in the city have complied with the law.

Initially, councilor Edwin Jagmoc, chairman of the council's committee on public services, said they met some difficulty in the implementation of the "no segregation, no collection policy" in barangay Duljo-Fatima. He also said there are other barangays in the city having this problem.