Council orders probe into missing incinerator parts

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Council yesterday ordered an investigation into reports that some vital parts of the P10-million unused incinerator at the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill are now “missing.”

Councilor Edwin Jagmoc, chairman of the Committee on Public Services, brought up the matter during their regular session yesterday.

Jagmoc specifically mentioned the incinerator’s rubberized conveyor as among those parts that are already missing after 12 years of being idle since in 1997.

Tasked to investigate the report were former city councilors and now city consultants Manuel Legaspi and Jocelyn Pesquera, who were ordered to quickly come up with their report.

The incinerator was made part of the package when the city availed itself of the P220-million loan from the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund for the sanitary landfill under the Metro Cebu Development Project-2. The incinerator was acquired to dispose of the pathological hospital wastes that could have lengthened the life span of the landfill, but the city was unable to use it because of the protest on whether it was equipped with proper pollution control devices.

Environmentalists strongly opposed the operation of the incinerator at the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill are afraid that its operation might affect the public health because it will reportedly emit hazardous gases.

But in yesterday’s regular session of the City Council, presiding officer and Vice Mayor Michael Rama asked why incinerators are being used in Singapore, Taiwan and in other developing countries and do not cause health problems. The Clean Air Act bans incineration for fear it will cause health hazard.

A group of Cebu media who visited Taiwan two months ago personally observed that their incinerator there is doing well, but of course, it is a so-called “the latest model” unlike the one owned by Cebu City.

In 2003, the spare parts of the incinerator in Inayawan Sanitary Landfill were already corroded and it is also believed that its hydraulics and engine will no longer run.

But even before the law that bans the use of incinerators was enacted, the city has been unable to operate the incinerator since its acquisition because it was not issued an environmental compliance certificate for lack of pollution control devices. — Rene U. Borromeo/WAB (THE FREEMAN)