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'Upset' Duterte willing to spend on shipping back Canada trash

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'Upset' Duterte willing to spend on shipping back Canada trash
In this May 13, 2019 photo, President Rodrigo Duterte shows his marked index finger after casting his vote for the midterm elections in Davao City. After a week-long absence from the public eye, Duterte has ordered appropriate government agencies to look for a private shipping company that would return containers of trash to Canada.
Presidential photo / Richard Madelo

MANILA, Philippines — After Canada missed its deadline of taking back containers of garbage from the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered concerned government agencies to act on the matter.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo announced that the president has instructed the "appropriate office" to look for a private shipping company that would return the trash to the North American country.

Panelo, however, did not specify which government agency was tasked to do so.

According to Malacañang, the president is "upset" over the "inordinate delay" of Canada in taking back the containers of waste illegally shipped to the Philippines between 2013 and 2014.

"The Filipino people are gravely insulted about Canada treating this country as a dump site... The government of the Philippines will shoulder all expenses and we do not mind," Panelo said in press briefing.

Panelo stressed that Duterte's position on the issue is "principled as it is uncompromising."

"If Canada will not accept the trash, we will leave the same within the territorial waters or 12 nautical miles out to from the baseline of any of their country's shores," Panelo said.

Panelo issued this statement a day after he confirmed that a private shipping company has already been hired to ship back the waste.

He clarified that Canada's pronouncements are "neither here nor there" and that there has been no word from Ottawa after it missed its May 15 deadline.

Asked if the Philippines considers severing ties with Canada over the garbage row, Panelo said "that is going to that direction" based on Duterte's pronouncements.

Last week, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. ordered the recall of the Philippine ambassador and consuls to Canada after the North American country failed to take back its trash.

Locsin said the Philippines will maintain diminished diplomatic presence in Canada until the remaining containers of garbage are shipped back. — Patricia Lourdes Viray

CANADA

PHILIPPINES-CANADA TIES

As It Happens
LATEST UPDATE: May 31, 2019 - 9:41am

A private Canadian company shipped more than 100 containers of household waste to Manila in 2013 and 2014 and have since stayed. (Bureau of Customs photo)

May 31, 2019 - 9:41am

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr. tells pulled out envoys in Canada to return to their posts following the repatriation of the 69 containers of trash to the North American country.

"To our recalled posts, get your flights back. Thanks and sorry for the trouble you went through to drive home a point," Locsin says in a tweet.

 

 

May 31, 2019 - 8:07am

The ship M/V Bavaria leaves the Philippines to return to Canada the 69 containers of toxic waste after six years.

The ship tasked to transport the garbage arrived at the Subic Bay Freeport at 2:40 p.m. Thursday.

May 29, 2019 - 7:23pm

Trash from Canada will be shipped back on Thursday, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra says in a statement to reporters.

Guevarra has been designated officer-in-charge in the absence of President Rodrigo Duterte, who is in Japan for an official visit.

"The cost of reshipment from Manila to Vancouver, estimated at P10 million, will be shouldered by the Canadian government. The container vans will be loaded on vessels owned by three shipping companies," he also says.

May 24, 2019 - 11:16am
Amid tensions over the Canada trash shipped in the Philippines, the EcoWaste Coalition raises its condemnation of the latest attempt to dump garbage into the country, this time mixed plastic waste from Hong Kong, China.
 
"We denounce this latest attempt to bring into the country over 25 tons of mixed plastic waste from Hong Kong amid our nation’s ongoing efforts to send back similar illegal waste shipments from Canada and South Korea," says EcoWaste Coalition National Coordinator Aileen Lucero.
 
EcoWaste joined officials of the Bureau of Customs last Wednesday in inspecting a one 40-foot container van containing 22 sling bags weighing 25,610 kilograms of mixed plastic waste instead of the declared “assorted electronic accessories,” the group says in a release today. 
 
The shipment that came from Hong Kong arrived at the Mindanao Container Terminal in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental on Jan. 2, 2019 on board SITC Fujian. The cargo was shipped by Hin Yuen Tech. Env. Limited and was consigned to Crowd Win Industrial Limited.
May 24, 2019 - 11:12am
Amid tensions over the Canada trash shipped in the Philippines, the EcoWaste Coalition raises its condemnation of the latest attempt to dump into the country, this time mixed plastic waste from Hong Kong, China.
 
"We denounce this latest attempt to bring into the country over 25 tons of mixed plastic waste from Hong Kong amid our nation’s ongoing efforts to send back similar illegal waste shipments from Canada and South Korea," says EcoWaste Coalition National Coordinator Aileen Lucero.
 
EcoWaste joined officials of the Bureau of Customs last Wednesday in inspecting a one 40-foot container van containing 22 sling bags weighing 25,610 kilograms of mixed plastic waste instead of the declared “assorted electronic accessories,” the group says in a release today. 
 
The shipment that came from Hong Kong arrived at the Mindanao Container Terminal in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental on Jan. 2, 2019 on board SITC Fujian. The cargo was shipped by Hin Yuen Tech. Env. Limited and was consigned to Crowd Win Industrial Limited.
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