Duterte’s Senate bets: War dare vs. Canada an exaggeration

President Rodrigo Duterte's threat to go to war against Canada over the latter's trash dumped to the Philippines was an exaggeration to make Canada act on its unlawful act, administration Senate bets and incumbent Senators Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III and Sonny Angara.

The Senators were referring to the 103 container vans of garbage mislabeled as “recyclable plastic materials” that was shipped to Manila by an Ontario,Canada-based firm Chronic, Inc.

"'Yung declaring war, siyempre exaggeration 'yan, but that means that Canada must seriously act on the waste they have dumped into our country. That issue has been pending for so long," Pimentel told GMA News Online.

"I have also raised this issue with the Canadian ambassador when he paid me a courtesy call as Senate President. No country, no matter how poor, should be treated as a dumping ground of the waste of rich countries. Bawal 'yan, even under international law," Pimentel, a lawyer, added.

Angara, for his part, said the President was simply stressing the point.

"That is just a figure of speech on the part of the President. He is just making a point about the trash," Angara said in a separate text message.

Likewise, Pimentel said that he has already filled a bill prohibiting the dumping of waste in the Philippines even under the guise of waste to energy.

"Bawal na 'yan (pagtatapon), just like what happened with [South] Korean trash dumped in Mindanao. Bawal na 'yan kahit na legit pa kuno ang purpose pero alam naman natin na dumping lang, kunwari lang na waste to energy," Pimentel added.

Another reelectionist, Senator JV Ejercito, agreed with the President's position that Canada should take its trash back but did not comment on whether threatening to go to war is the right approach to the situation.

"I agree with the the President that they should take it back. It should not be a precedent. The Philippines should not be a dumping ground of first world countries’ wastes," Ejercito added.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked if the Canadian government would be taking back such trash when Manila hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and its allies' summit in November 2017, but Trudeau was non-committal and just said that such return of the trash to Canada is "theoretically possible."

"There are a number of questions: who will pay for it (shipment), where the financial responsibility is. This is a commercial transaction. It did not involve governments,” Trudeau told reporters then. —NB, GMA News