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Stella Arnaldo from 'The Manila Standard' Sonny vs Sonny? Tales from the dark side It’s very disheartening to note that Senator John “Sonny” Osmeña, one of the heroes of the fight against dumping of Metro Manila’s garbage in Semirara Island, Aklan, has called for a costly and environmentally unsound technology to dispose of our trash. We refer to the senator’s proposal to amend the Clean Air Act to allow the use of incinerators. Such a system has been known to pollute the air with the burned garbage such that while we would get rid of garbage onland, we will be messing up the air we breathe. God knows we’ve been breathing too much bad air already that many doctors have noticed a substantially large increase over the years of respiratory cases. Aside from the fact that the technology is not quite environmentally safe, it is also costly to build. At the rate our government is going, it is already hard-pressed to keep its budget deficit within the P145 billion it projected. And yet, the cost of building an incinerator with all the monitoring equipment and pollution/emission controls is estimated to cost $80 per mt, according to the World Bank. That’s P4,160 per mt on a forex rate of P52 to the dollar, or roughly P12.5 million to get rid of 3,000 mt of garbage in the metropolis! And that’s only half of the total output of Metro Manila! Who’s going to
foot the bill for building these incinerators, senator? It’s very uncharacteristic of Secretary Alvarez to keep silent over the issue when he was supposedly one of the prime movers of said law. We too have been trying to get his side to no avail. (Could be too busy with the Montalban, Rizal dump?) Well, even before Secretary Alvarez sat at the DENR, the agency has a long record of opposing the incinerator technology specially because of the huge expense involved in building such facilities. As such, it makes
sense for a poor country like ours to, sadly, still use dumps. The only
difference *** For those still in the dark about the process of ECC issuances, it usually takes about six months before such certificates are issued. Our sources said the proposed Montalban dump never passed through the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau, specifically its environmental impact assessment division. Normally, the EMB even convenes an independent group of engineers, environmentalists and consultants to study the project applying for an ECC. It may be that the good secretary had to give an ECC quick because the metropolis’ garbage problem has reached emergency proportions, we don’t know. What we know is that there are strict procedures, instituted since the 1980s, that have to be followed so such projects are beyond question. Well, we’re still waiting for your reply Secretary Alvarez. *** Since last year, Pacific Coffee had been planning to enter the local market via a tieup with Dymocks Booksellers, also an Australian firm. Dymocks opened early this year at the Robinsons Place in Ermita, Manila, with a small space allotted for the café. However, we are told
that the generally gloomy business scenario in the country has discouraged *** Slowly but surely, Rustan’s is reaching its franchise commitment of putting up 42 outlets in the country by the end of the year. Do you wonder why Filipinos are getting irritable all of a sudden, with complaints aired even more loudly than usual, rallies held here and there, our patience running thin with the government, police, legislators, etc? Hooey, all that caffeine
must be making us high-strung eh? |