Abalos sets tone of barangay polls

Will we at last see a clean Metro Manila, at least from now till mid-July? We should, if Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Ben Abalos makes good his word.

Fed up with unsightly, unsanitary heaps of garbage on sidewalks and creeks, Abalos is warning barangay officials of malfeasance charges. At the same time, he is contemplating awards for those who earnestly keep their communities clean and green.

That should put dysfunctional village chiefs on their toes. Barangay elections are coming up on July 15. Reelectionists among them will have to work harder, not only on their poll campaigns but also their trash duties. Councilmen who aim to topple their long-reigning captains must show that they can do a better job of cleaning up their surroundings. Newcomers too will have to draw up ingenious plans to sell to voters against litterbugs in their midst.

Abalos in effect has set the tone for the barangay elections. Voters will be choosing who among their aspiring neighbors are best suited for the primary job of managing the disposal of their solid wastes.

In threatening to book them for nonperformance, Abalos reminded barangay leaders that the Solid Waste Management Act identifies them as the front-liners of government’s garbage program. While the MMDA sets up sanitary landfills and mayors hire garbage haulers, village chiefs must mobilize their neighbors to cooperate with trash rules. The barangay men’s job is mainly informational. They must notify constituents to put out their garbage only on designated collection days and hours, and in proper trash bags. They must teach them to reduce their trash by segretating, recycling and composting. They must tell them about ordinances that forbid the hanging of trash bags on trees, and allowing pets to pooh on streets and sidewalks.

If the info drives fail to do the trick, barangay men are authorized to make arrests. The MMDA has deputized them as sanitation cops who may issue citations on uncooperative neighbors. If littering is a crime, ignoring garbage citations is too. Habitual litterbugs may not know it, but unheeded citations are sent to the NBI. Next time they line up for clearance for, say, overseas employment, they’d be unpleasantly surprised to read a notation about their being unsanitary. They might as well kiss the job offer goodbye.

Despite the law and the powers given by the MMDA, Abalos fumes, barangays have been remiss in their garbage duties. "There are thousands of barangay officials in Metro Manila," he says, "but I have yet to hear of someone who has arrested persons throwing garbage in esteros." Abalos is thinking of dispatching teams to videotape the clogged creeks for showing in flood-prone communities. That would expose malfeasant officials, although voters already know who they are.

Present barangay officials have been in office beyond their normal three-year tenure. Congress had extended their terms twice because of the usual excuse: lack of election funds. Some of them have shifted fealty to their congressmen-patrons, in lieu of obedience to mayors who manage city or town affairs. Replacing them with candidates who are conscious of their basic garbage duties could clean up Metro Manila, at least for the next three years.

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Sen. Robert Barbers and Rep. Jurdin Romualdo wanted a vote once and for all yesterday on whether to confirm Heherson Alvarez as Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources. But Rep. Vicente Sandoval, as vice chairman of the Commission on Appointments, insisted he had five more witnesses who wished to speak against confirmation. The 25-member CA thus decided to postpone the voting to Monday.

Delays in Alvarez’s final confirmation or rejection has brought to the fore his signing of DENR Administrative Order No. 2001-17 (DAO 17). No less than Fr. Archie Intengan, Jesuit Philippine provincial, has noted that "commercial fishing magnates and their spokespersons in Congress" are responsible for the delays. He circulated an article on the Internet about it.

Alvarez issued DAO 17 in June 2001 to implement the Fisheries Code of 1998. The Code delineates municipal seawaters as 15 kms from the coast. It reserves such waters for small fishermen with small boats, hooks and nets. Commercial fishing vessels can catch beyond the 15-km limit with their big boats and sophisticated equipment. DAO 17 takes a step farther to use the Archipelagic Principle to define a municipal coast. Under that principle, a municipality includes its islands. Naturally so, because several municipalities are by themselves islands surrounded by islets. By the definition, municipal waters extend not only from coasts of main islands like Luzon or Mindanao or Panay, but up to 15 kms from a municipality’s farthest island.

Commercial fishing magnates have cried that DAO 17 threatens the country’s food security. But mayors hail it as a revolutiuonary measure. Sandoval’s family owns a fleet of commercial fishing vessels based in Malabon-Navotas. Intengan is calling on his readers to support Alvarez in his aim to protect the small fishermen’s source of livelihood from the big boys. Perhaps he should ask Sandoval to inhibit himself from Alvarez’s confirmation hearings, if only to avoid suspicion of conflict of interest.

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