Rizal town slams new landfill pact; protest held

Until issues surrounding the new landfill in Rodriguez (Montalban) town in Rizal province are resolved, a garbage crisis may loom in Metro Manila as dump trucks will not be allowed to enter the area. While the Rodriguez local government vowed to oppose the operations of the new sanitary landfill, residents and town hall employees of Rodriguez formed a human barricade near the area to prevent dump trucks carrying Metro Manila's garbage from entering. Radio dzBB reported that the residents carried placards questioning Rizal Gov. Casimiro Ynares III's decision to control the facility instead of allowing the town to manage it. Many of the residents said Ynares' decision tends to deny local town folk potential job opportunities at the facility. Rodriguez Mayor Pedro Cuerpo said Tuesday that on his orders, dump trucks carrying Metro Manila's garbage will be blocked from entering the landfill until the issue has been resolved. "We're going to block any illegal landfill operated by the provincial government in our town. We will not agree to having the landfill in our area without us managing it," he said in Filipino on dzBB radio. GMA News Saksi reported that the Rizal provincial government has already signed a memorandum of agreement with a private landfill operator for the Rodriguez site. The MOA, the report said, showed that the landfill operator deals directly with provincial government and not the municipality of Rodriguez. "Violations in the old dumpsite, the 14-hectare landfill, we made sure that these will not happen with the new landfill," Ynares told GMA News. The GMA News report added that dump trucks pay P495 for each visit to the Rodriguez landfill. As many as 200 trucks enter the area daily. This means that the collections can reach P99,000 a day or P2.97 million a month. Based on the provincial government's plan, half of the earnings will go to towns near the landfill, the GMA News report said. For his part, Cuerpo said the new landfill has "no permission" from his town government. He said Rodriguez started the landfill project, but when the time came for it to finally start getting revenues from it, the provincial government cut in and insisted on managing it. "Why will the provincial government come in and take the landfill when we have the right to manage it? That's illegal," he said. Cuerpo said the block on the dump trucks will stay until all issues on the management of the facility are ironed out. He added that he was not the cause of the impasse. "Until all the kinks are ironed out regarding management, no one will have a place to dump their trash," he said. - GMANews.TV