Pampanga, Tarlac leaders up in arms vs dumping in Clark

ANGELES CITY – Gov. Lito Lapid, mayors of Tarlac and this province and community leaders have expressed surprise over reports that garbage from Metro Manila is being dumped in an area within the Clark special economic zone.

"The move counters the will of the people of Pampanga. I am outraged and I will oppose it," said Lapid. Members of the Metro Clark Advisory Council, composed of mayors from Tarlac and Pampanga, held an emergency meeting yesterday to tackle the reports.

Lapid, officials of the state-owned Clark Development Corp. (CDC) which has jurisdiction over the ecozone, the 600th Air Force Wing based in Clark and the mayors said they were not informed about the reported decision of the Economic Coordinating Council to allow the dumping of Metro Manila’s garbage at a gunnery area within the former US Air Force base.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno has reportedly announced that the Department of Natural Resources and Development and other concerned agencies were working out details of the garbage dumping in Clark.

Reports said the dumping started last Thursday night.

In Tarlac, political and Church leaders said they are prepared to mobilize people to set up roadblocks to prevent the dump trucks from passing through the province.

In another development, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Antonio Cerilles dispelled public concern yesterday about the environment risk that an engineered sanitary landfill could pose on the biodiversity and other natural resources within and around the proposed interim integrated waste management facility in Semirara Island, Antique.

"There is no environmental risk involved in the proposed site... as long as the approved environmental management plan submitted by the project proponents are strictly observed," Cerilles said in a statement. — Ding Cervantes, Benjie Villa