EDITORIAL - Cabrera's wrong move

As the Cebu City Council continues refusing to approve the P2.8 billion supplemental budget-1, some basic services have been held hostage. One of these services is the garbage collection of the city government.

In many areas across the city, thrash have scattered along the sidewalks, left uncollected due to the absence of funds. For months already, city residents had to cope with the stench that is now beginning to affect their health.

It is not that the city coffers have already been depleted that the City Hall no longer has the funds for garbage collection. There is P87 million being appropriated by the executive department for garbage tipping fee.

The problem, however, is that the amount cannot be released unless the council approves the SB-1. But as the budget controversy widens, some in the council, especially those allied with the opposition, came up with their own alibis in defending their refusal to approve the SB-1.

Councilor Nida Cabrera of the BOPK, for instance, said the city's garbage woes did not stem from the delay in the passage of the SB-1 but from the "alarming and questionable increase" in the volume of garbage.

In her privilege speech during the last council session, Cabrera explained the amount of garbage significantly rose this year compared to that in the previous years. In fact, the chairman of the council committee on environment said garbage in the city increased 82 percent from January to October this year from the total amount collected in 2014.

Well, there's no need to dispute the north district councilor. However, she should know that in a highly progressive city such as Cebu City, whose population is increasing every day, garbage is always bound to increase.

Cabrera should embrace the reality that the city government has no control over the rising volume of thrash. As a local lawmaker, the best that she can do is to help legislate ways for the city to have proper waste disposal program.

To blame the garbage woes on the rising volume generated by the city residents is clearly a wrong move for a councilor claiming to be a foremost local environmental advocate. What counts here is the need to regularly dispose of the garbage, which the city could have efficiently done had the councilors opted to unite and approve the budget.