EMB gets tough on Antique landfill despite pressures

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will strictly require the proponent of the interim sanitary landfill in Semirara, Antique to undergo the regular process in securing the required environmental compliance certificate (ECC).

Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) director Peter Anthony Abaya stressed this as he dispelled earlier claims of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Jejomar Binay that an ECC would be issued to the landfill proponent, R-II DMCI, by yearend.

Abaya admitted that the MMDA and the Greater Metro Manila Solid Waste Management Committee (GMMSWMC), headed by Flagship Projects Secretary Robert Aventajado, have been pressuring him to hasten the issuance of an ECC to R-II DMCI.

The R-II DMCI is a private company which the Metro Mayors’ Council recently selected to handle the development of an interim landfill in Semirara, Antique.

The MMDA and the GMMSWMC are pushing for the landfill project in Antique to prevent a garbage crisis that may result from the closure of the sanitary landfill in San Mateo, Rizal by Dec. 31.

"Now that we have two days left, there is no other word but emergency. It’s critical that you issue an ECC," Abaya quoted Binay and Aventajado as saying in a statement issued to him to allegedly pressure him to issue an ECC to R-II DMCI.

However, Abaya said he is not inclined to buckle down to pressures despite the urgency of the matter.

"Our position is simple. We will not issue an ECC unless we have gone through the entire process, the complete, detailed procedure," he said.

But Abaya said that in the absence of an ECC, the Antique landfill project can start if the R-II DMCI can submit an environmental management plan to the EMB. — With Marvin Sy