DENR hit for upholding San Mateo landfill's environmental compliance certificate

MANILA, Philippines - An environmental group assailed the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) yesterday for upholding the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) it issued for the construction of a new landfill in San Mateo, Rizal.

This, as the Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE) insisted that the landfill is located in a forest protection area based on the zoning map of the municipal government.

Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan-PNE, said the town’s zoning map shows that the landfill traverses a portion of the Kalakhan production forest classified as a “protected forest area” under two municipal ordinances passed in 2001 and 2002 and a municipal council resolution in 2002.

Bautista challenged the DENR to a joint ocular inspection to determine the landfill’s exact location.

“Given this evidence, it only proves our earlier apprehension that the DENR investigation, before it even started, was only to be used as cover-up to the anomalies and violations of the pollutive and anti-environment operation of the SMSLDC,” Bautista said, referring to the San Mateo Sanitary Landfill Development Corp., said to be the operator of the new landfill.

“A landfill project operating in a forest, which is part of a watershed area, is unimaginable,” he added.

Bautista said the DENR, the municipal government and the courts “have chosen to defend and support the interests of SMSLDC instead of taking a pro-environment and pro-people stance.”

Bautista described as “irresponsible and disastrous” the DENR’s decision giving the green light to the new landfill after its Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) cleared the project.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza earlier told The STAR that the EMB investigation refuted the allegations of environmentalists and concerned residents that the new landfill is located in a watershed.

“It (landfill) is properly and accurately located in Barangay Pintong Bukawe. So based on the findings, we cannot withdraw the ECC issued to them,” he said.

But Bautista said Atienza should put first the welfare of the environment before anything else.