Police use water cannons to break up Antipolo protest

Truncheon-wielding policemen used water cannons to disperse protesters blocking traffic early morning yesterday along the highway leading to the San Mateo garbage dump which President Estrada had ordered reopened to ease Metro Manila’s mounting trash problem.

No one was hurt in the pre-dawn dispersal in Barangay Masinag, Antipolo. Some 1,000 protesters barricaded the highway, preventing at least 40 garbage trucks from passing through.

"We don’t want your garbage!" cried the protesters led by Antipolo Mayor Angelito Gatlabayan. "We’ll fight you to the end!"

The standoff lingered into the afternoon and tensions only eased after Interior and Local Government Secretary Alfredo Lim met with Gatlabayan and other local leaders for more than two hours.

Lim tried to convince the leaders that he would tell the President to use the San Mateo landfill for a maximum three months while the government looks for another dumpsite for tons of Metro Manila’s garbage.

"I’ll be the one to stop the trucks after three months," Lim assured the Antipolo residents.

However, the leaders refused Lim’s appeal, saying it was the same assurance they heard from another government official last year.

Elizardo Kasilag, spokesman for the United Homeowners Association of Antipolo (A-Homes), said they would never agree to the proposal since it would mean they would again bear the burden of absorbing Metro Manila’s refuse.

Despite the opposition, though, Lim reportedly ordered the garbage trucks to proceed to the landfill. He explained that he understood the sentiments of Antipolo residents but could not allow them to block the trucks because doing so would be illegal.

Lawyer Gilbert Lauengco, Antipolo’s city administrator, said they would continue opposing the dumping of garbage in San Mateo and would find legal ways to do so.

What to do with trash from Metro Manila’s nine million residents has recently become a political issue. Residents of Semirara island near Antique have obtained a preliminary court order against the island’s use as a dump. The order forced two barges carrying garbage to the island to head back to Manila.

The ruling also forced the government to quickly find an alternative site, with Health Secretary Alfredo Romualdez warning of possible epidemics if the metropolis’ mounting trash is not collected immediately.

The President said Thursday that the San Mateo landfill – closed by the local government on Dec. 31 after an 18-month grace period – would be reopened, but only for six months.

His pronouncement prompted local residents to use vehicles and a wooden stage to block the Marcos highway Saturday night and pelted passing garbage trucks with rocks, hitting one driver in the face and smashing his side window.

The San Mateo dump is a sprawling landfill some 30 kilometers east of Manila, with parts inside the limits of San Mateo town and Antipolo, a hilly city of 600,000 people.

Residents of both areas have long been protesting against it, complaining of possible seepage from the trash into the water table, falling property values and the foul smell of garbage.

Presidential Adviser on Flagship Projects Robert Aventajado said members of the President’s Cabinet will be meeting today to discuss the garbage crisis.

He noted that the reopening of the San Mateo dump was a "desperate measure in this desperate situation."

"Kumbaga, kapit sa patalim na ito (This is already a last-ditch move)," he said. "The government cannot allow garbage to block the streets."

Aventajado explained that because the May 2001 election is fast approaching, no local official seeking re-election could make a decision to allow his town or city to become a garbage dump. He refused to name names, but he was obviously referring to Gatlabayan who will again be running for mayor of Antipolo.

"Privately they say they agree (with the reopening of San Mateo landfill) but they cannot do anything about it because the elections are coming," he said. "They say they have proposed sites so I tell them to point out the sites and we’ll send the garbage there tomorrow." – With reports from Paolo Romero