The need for commitment, civic-mindedness, responsibility

Many of the problems besetting urban and suburban communities, like, solid waste disposal, drainage, illegal settlers or squatters, and other community-related matters, are often not impossible to prevent at the inception, at the barangay level.

The keyword is “prevent” before the problems have long set in and become bigger that eventually complicates almost beyond solution. More often than not, it starts with tolerance with the common attitude that such community problems be left to higher authorities, particularly the city or town mayors.

The tolerance gravitates into a precedence that similar violations are hard put to prevent. In urban/suburban barrios and sitios, putting up shanties or lean-tos along roadsides are initially makeshift stores, then improved with temporary covers, and later by stronger materials for dwelling. Or in downtown areas, street shoulders and sidewalks are illegally used for small business, like, a repair shop, parlor, or eatery; thus, pedestrians walk right on the streets, not on the sidewalks… These are common sites almost everywhere.

Lately though in Mandaue City, it’s to the credit of the administration that in downtown hubs and suburbs, “the sidewalks were returned to the pedestrians”. Hopefully, it stays that way throughout the city down to the barrios, as a permanent program in individual and community discipline. Some might take this with umbrage, but realistically, President Ferdinand Marcos as the martial law head then, was right that “disiplina ang kailangan”.

The worsening drainage headache becoming perennial owing principally to illegal settlers on riverbeds and esteros, and along their banks, making these waterways as “septic tanks” and repositories of household garbage could have been not serious if only addressed at the barangay level. The Cebu City and Mandaue City Mahiga Creek boundary that the recent destructive “cloudburst” naturally shocked both LGUs are stark examples of tolerance gone beyond control. Incidentally, there is more of Mahiga Creek beyond the territorial limit of Subangdaku, if the government commits to restore the natural waterway up to the Banilad outskirts.

But the purpose of this write-up, or at least its inevitable refrain, is a wake-up call to all barangay LGUs of cities and towns, particularly their downtown and suburban communities.

Given the present law on solid waste management that imposes penal sanctions against violators and against LGUs which fail to implement and enforce the system, it behooves on the barrio officialdom to run their material recovery facility (MRF) for simple composting after segregation of waste materials into biodegradable and non-biodegradable, or “malata” and “dili malata”.

In Mandaue, all the 27 barrios had been perceived to have their own MRF’s and composting mechanism; and, that only residual waste dumped in the supposedly “closed” Opao-Umapad dumpsite. It was a complete shocker that as of now after all, only two barangays – Canduman and Pagsabungan – have operational MRF’s and solid waste disposal project. All these, despite the 27 barangays had been allocated P100T each by the city government, P50T aid from the provincial government, shredders costing P65T, a garbage truck each, and JO personnel for all barangays.

Given the environmental mandatory law, the ever-increasing population and the related problems, the financial grants and materials, the training and seminars, and the emoluments now enjoyed by the barangay personnel, it is incumbent on them to do their active roles. This is without prejudice to requesting for assistance that higher authorities can augment owing to the ramifications and complications in implementation.

Definitely, the law requires the barrio officialdom to implement the solid waste program, especially in urban and suburban communities that are congested, and enforce it at their own level. They can no longer pass on their bounden duties to the city or town mayor. All it needs is a sense of commitment to do their tasks, civic-mindedness coupled with political will, and awareness of their official responsibility to do what is right.

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