Cebu City to intensify anti-littering law

CEBU, Philippines – Persons who indiscriminately throw their trash anywhere, beware.

The Cebu City government has recently approved a budget of P1,987,500 for the hiring of "environmental officers" to be assigned to the 53 urban barangays of the city to strictly enforce the law against indiscriminate throwing of garbage.

Mayor Michael Rama has already approved the proposal of Councilors Nida Cabrera and Eduardo Rama Jr. for the city to appropriate funds for the honorarium of 265 personnel who will be hired through the recommendation of the barangay captains. Each barangay will get three environmental officers.

The City Council has recently passed the resolutions of Cabrera and Rama for the creation of the so-called Barangay Environmental Officers who will be granted P1,500 monthly honoraria from August 1 to December 31.

The two city legislators said aside from enforcing the provisions of Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the environmental officers are also responsible for ensuring that "composting, segregation of recyclable material and accumulating of biodegradable material and other related functions" is being done in the barangays.

Cabrera and Rama said the barangay captains will be the ones to recommend to the city who will be appointed as environmental officers in their respective barangays.

During the stint of then mayor and now south district Rep. Tomas R. Osmeña, the city already started to launch a city-wide intensified campaign against the indiscriminate throwing of garbage.

Hundreds of volunteers were also hired by the city and became members of the City Environment Sanitation and Enforcement Team (CESET), but all of the 300 volunteers had resigned.

The city's failure to release the 20 percent share of the volunteers from the amount of fines collected from the violators prompted the CESET members to stop helping the city.

There is an ordinance that allows the CESET volunteers to receive a P25 for every P100 fines that will be collected from the violators.

The existing anti-littering ordinance carries a penalty of up to P2,500 fine or an imprisonment of one year. The violator may amicably settle his violation by just paying P500 to the City Treasurer's Office.

The CEST members assisted the city in enforcing the law that prohibits the throwing of wastes, even mere cigarette butts in public places and to require the public to segregate their garbage before throwing them in garbage sites.

From 2005-2008, more than 40,000 people were apprehended by the CESET volunteers for indiscriminately throwing their garbage in public places, but many of the CESET personnel failed to get their shares.

Cabrera admitted that there are still many persons in Cebu City who are not following the proper segregation of garbage as provided for under the Republic Act 9003.

The Department of Public Services earlier threatened that unsegregated garbage will not be collected from the source, but the garbage collectors are not implementing it.

The city produces up to 500 tons of garbage daily which are dumped at the sanitary landfill in Barangay Inayawan. (THE FREEMAN)