Letter To The Editor: Coal Ash Dumpsite project of Cebu Province in Balili Resort, Naga, Cebu

Hon. Director Virginia Santiago

Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas

Our group through lawyers Gloria Estenzo Ramos and Benjamin Cabrido sent a letter to the Governor, Vice Governor and Members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Cebu on July 7.

Since the issues involve the ethical conduct on the part of the local government officials, accountability, transparency and lack of public participation in the transactions entered into by them, we respectfully request the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas to assume jurisdiction and conduct an investigation into the purchase of the subject property and the execution of a Memorandum of Agreement with a coal power plant in Cebu.

We hope that the Cebu province will reconsider its decision to go into an extremely hazardous project, considering that coal ash has radioactive elements, and contain hazardous substances harmful to living things and the ecosystem, such as mercury, lead, arsenic, among others.

RA 9003 does not allow the location of a municipal waste dump site near waterways. More stringent requirements should in fact be in place with extremely hazardous materials such as coal ash. In addition, Capitol officials recklessly disregarded the environmental impact assessment process required by the law.

Can an enforcer (of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Solid Waste Management Law, among a host of other environmental laws) be at the same time a contractor for the disposal of a highly hazardous substance such as coal ash, and in a beach property at that?

The province must take the lead in crafting measures to fight climate change. It is not even enforcing seriously the above-said laws. But instead of going in that direction, this project is inviting more coal producers, here and abroad, to dump their coal ash in Cebu.

Coal produces carbon and other polluting, toxic green house gas which is the number one cause of global warming. We are among the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. The officials in Cebu are not even doing something concrete about this biggest security threat of humankind.

From PDI, April 14, 2009, Manila: “Citing studies validated by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said Asian countries, including the Philippines, were among the most vulnerable to climate change.

Yap said NSCB Secretary General Romulo Virola had warned that climate change would become a major threat to the country’s development since vulnerable provinces were home to some of the poorest Filipinos.

The NSCB had studied the report by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia, which identified six Asian nations as the most vulnerable to climate change, with the Philippines as the only country where the range of vulnerability was placed throughout the entire nation. ..”

(SGD.) DANTE T. RAMOS

University of Cebu College of Law

Banilad, Cebu City