MMDA boss: Junk Jancom contract

Don’t throw good money after trash.

Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Bayani Fernando said yesterday he would urge President Arroyo not to sign the multibillion-peso solid waste-disposal deal with Jancom Environmental Corporation.

The Jancom contract, Fernando said, is too expensive for the government to implement and for local government units (LGUs) to sustain.

He added that 10 of 17 Metro Manila mayors aired the same sentiment at yesterday’s Metro Manila Council meeting.

Under the Jancom contract, a minimum of 3,000 tons of garbage would be incinerated by the firm daily, at an incineration plant to be built and operated by Jancom atop the San Mateo landfill in Rizal province. Metro Manila produces 8,000 tons of garbage daily.

Jancom won the bidding for the solid waste disposal contract with a proposed tipping fee of $59 per ton of garbage over a period of 25 years under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme. Under this contract, Jancom would be paid a total of $177,000 daily in tipping fees alone.

Fernando said LGUs will eventually have to shoulder the solid-waste management expenses generated by the Jancom deal and that the costs must be considered carefully.

Fernando’s predecessor, Benjamin Abalos Sr., shared the same sentiments on the Jancom deal, but Abalos attempted to negotiate a compromise agreement with Jancom, under which it would only charge $32 to dispose of each ton of garbage — in a sanitary landfill rather than by incineration. The use of incinerators to dispose of garbage is illegal under the Clean Air Act.

Fernando’s decision to give the Jancom deal the thumbs-down also affects the Pro-Environment Consortium (PEC), which won a contract two years ago for a sanitary landfill BOT project that would dispose of 2,000 tons of garbage at a tipping fee of $18.89 per ton.

Fernando said the PEC contract is considered null and void as a result of the Supreme Court’s Jan. 30 ruling on the MMDA’s case against Jancom.

The high court compelled the MMDA to honor the Jancom contract and declared all other bids conducted in place of the Jancom contract void and illegal. However, the Supreme Court gave Mrs. Arroyo the last word on the deal.

The President said in April that she has no intention of signing the "flawed" Jancom contract in its present form. However, she said she would base her decision on Fernando’s recommendation. The major owners of Jancom, it was reported earlier, are golf buddies of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.

In a related development, the Metro Manila Council has given Fernando the green light to transport the metropolis’ garbage to proposed Southern Luzon landfills via train.

The proposal to use the tracks of the Philippine National Railways to transport trash to new landfill sites was approved by the MMDA in 1993.

Fernando said he is looking for a 2,000 hectare area that will serve as both an industrial park and sanitary landfill. The operation of the landfill, he said, will generate employment in industries involved in recycling, composting and other related fields. Firms that specialize in making money out of trash will be invited to set up shop on the property earmarked for garbage disposal.

"It will be a system that will also serve the provinces of Laguna, Bulacan and Quezon. We will provide tax breaks to the industries, then we will have big garbage business," Fernando said.

He also assured the potential host provinces that there should be no reason to worry about the project: "In due time, I will present them with the rationale behind this (proposal). They should know that garbage — if properly handled — is not that bad."