Group slams Bontoc mayor over garbage dumping near river

TABUK CITY, Kalinga -  The Kalinga Anti-pollution Action Group (KAPAG), the local environmentalist group which filed a petition for writ of kalikasan and continuing mandamus against the government of Bontoc, Mt. Province, scoffed at Mayor Pascual Sacgaca for saying that the dumping of its garbage on a mountainside adjoining the Chico River was "out of necessity.”

“For around two decades that they have been hearing complaints about the Caluttit dumpsite, they have not done anything about it but when the petition was filed, they were able to find a new place. This only shows they were dumping in Caluttit dump not out of necessity but out of sheer convenience,” lawyer Erroy Comafay, lead counsel of the KAPAG said.

Sacgaca earlier declared the town’s reliance on an old dump that stands 100 meters from the Chico river was a “necessity rather than utter neglect or willful violation” of environmental laws.

He said the geographic situation of the town “makes it hard to pinpoint a suitable site for its sanitary landfill. The [town] is surrounded by mountains and the only flat lands are those privately owned rice fields which are beside the Chico River.” 

Comafay denied the allegation of Sacgaca that the KAPAG has singled out Bontoc from among the towns traversed by the Chico River because it is only the local government unit of Bontoc that is dumping its garbage into the river through the Caluttit dump site.

The Caluttit dump site is located on a mountainside over the Chico River where the garbage eventually end in the river and is carried downstream.

An evidence submitted by the KAPAG before the Supreme Court to bolster its petition was a video footage showing an official local government unit garbage dump truck in the act of disposing unsegregated garbage into the road side dump site at Barangay Caluttit.

Comafay added that some leaders of Tinglayan, the Kalinga town which borders with Mt. Province, have declared their support to the petition versus Bontoc and have expressed their support to stand as witness in the case.

A team from the KAPAG already met with the leaders of Tinglayan headed by Mayor Fernando Abay to get more information about the effects of dumping by upstream communities on the people of the town.

“They told us that the practice of dumping garbage into the Chico River causes illnesses particularly diarrhea among children and those who eat fish caught in the river during typhoons and the rainy season,” Comafay said.

According to Tinglayan villagers, tourists who go rafting in the river after typhoons and rains complain of the bad odor of the water which they attribute to the dumping of wastes into the river.

During the visit, the KAPAG team was shown accumulated garbage which include slippers and motor oil containers deposited on the banks of the river.

Abay and several barangay captains living along the river have reportedly agreed to testify before the SC on how the dumping of waste into the Chico River by upstream communities especially Bontoc affects the health of Tinglayan residents.

The KAPAG filed  the  petition for writ of kalikasan and continuing mandamus with prayer for temporary environmental protection order against the Bontoc, Mt. Province LGU and government agencies mandated to enforce environmental laws in connection with the Bontoc’s continued dumping of its solid waste in the Chico River.

It is the second kalikasan petition lodged before the SC after Tuba town, in Benguet was favored against Baguio City after the August 27, 2011’s tragic trash slide along the latter’s open dumpsite that killed six and affected water sources.