Red tape causes joblessness, pollution, injustice, deaths

A vacationing overseas worker is in a quandary. An engineer, he used to work for a construction firm, but found no need to renew his license since he left for abroad in 2006. But for a new job that requires an up-to-date card, he came home last week to renew it at the Professional Regulation Commission. To his alarm, he was told it already had been renewed last June for a three-year period till 2015. Supposedly he should get the document from the person he had authorized to secure it. The engineer informed the bureaucrat that he had not sent anybody for his license, and was renewing it himself only now. He asked if somebody was using his name, license number, and signature for whatever shenanigan. The bureaucrat said they would review the files and draft him a reply in ten days, on May 7. The engineer pleaded for faster processing, since he was due to fly back to overseas work on May 6 with the license, or else blow his chance for better employment. Getting no assurance, he turned to the court of last resort: the media.

DZMM public service show hosts Kaye Dacer and Julius Babao promptly took up the cause and for two days pleaded on air for the PRC to move. Yesterday the bureaucrat said she was still searching for the engineer’s supposed “authorization letter” that, the latter repeated, he never sent. Nonetheless, the bureaucrat said the task would take till Tuesday the 7th, as she already had told the persistent license applicant. Couldn’t she be a bit reasonable, the broadcasters patiently pressed on, since the engineer was departing on the 6th and so needs the license fast? She’ll see, the bureaucrat said, for she’s loaded with paperwork, so try following up today, Friday, the week’s last workday before the hapless applicant leaves.

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The law keeps confidential the details of rape cases involving minors. Names are withheld from the press; trial is held behind closed doors. That’s to protect the victims’ privacy and reputation from gossips, and embolden them to report the crime and testify against assailants.

So women and children’s rights lawyer Trixie Angeles-Cruz calls by an alias, “Mila,” her client who is aged 21 but was a minor when allegedly raped. Mila is seeking justice to this day, but can’t get help from the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Attorney Trixie bewails the refusal of the DSWD-National Capital Region office to release Mila’s case files. The bureaucrats’ alibi is that since it’s confidential, Mila needs to secure a court order first for them to release it. But the victim herself is asking for the files precisely because she is questioning perceived court inaction, the lawyer said. Still the bureaucrats are adamant. Attorney Trixie won’t speculate if they are protecting somebody or just stupid. Whichever, it is patently illegal and ridiculous for the agency to withhold case files from the very victim, represented at that by legal counsel.

Mila was 16 when she and a 14-year-old neighbor sexually were abused at the barangay hall, after being arrested for curfew violation. She alleged that the attackers, seven street watchmen, were led by barangay captain Dale Malapitan, son of city congressman Oscar Malapitan. Also accused was Dale’s uncle, Tokong Malapitan.

The DSWD took custody of and oversaw the prosecution for Mila, until the case suddenly was dropped in late 2011. Mila says she never was informed by the court of the case dismissal, much less of the reasons. She only found out about it recently after seeing Dale’s election campaign posters to replace his father for congressman. That prompted her to seek Attorney Trixie’s counsel on the case records.

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It’s bad enough that the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board takes eons to approve applications to operate buses, taxis, jeepneys, and tricycles. It’s worse when the Land Transportation Office also can’t issue license plates so that the public utility vehicles can start plying routes.

Countless operators complain to the press about their papers — including for mere upgrading to newer taxicabs — taking a year for the LTFRB to process. All that time they make no earnings.

Operators who finally get franchises then have to secure the special yellow plates from the LTO. That takes another six months, at least.

And the government wonders why there’s jobless growth?

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Reacting to my piece last week on garbage dumps masquerading as landfills, readers ask what the national government is doing about it. The Ecological Waste Management Act has banned dumping in favor of landfilling since 2001. Unlike open dumps, landfills are sanitary. Yet provincial, city, and town execs do not comply. In such cases, shouldn’t the environment and the interior departments force or jail them?

In Bocaue, Bulacan, trash openly is being dumped in a vacant private lot along MacArthur Highway in Barangay Bunlo. Local officials say it’s a temporary arrangement. But residents complain that it’s been seven months; the stench sickens them, and the coming rains threaten to spill the waste onto streets and canals.

Landfilling entails trash segregating and recycling (like composting) in homes and offices. That way, less refuse would need to be hauled to landfills for sorting, burying, and compacting of bio- and non-biodegradables.

Local execs give an illegal meaning to the slogan, “there’s cash in trash.” They take kickbacks from garbage collection contracts; the more hauling trucks, the more kickbacks. So they continue to operate dumps that require more trucks.

Some build fake, unsanitary landfills that are nothing more than dumps. One such is the Rizal Provincial Landfill in Rodriguez town, where four workers were buried alive when a huge unstable pile of dumped waste collapsed during a thunderstorm. It was the second such incident there, reminds Romeo Hidalgo, NGO rep at the National Commission on Solid Waste Management. In 2009 a riprap toppled, spilling tons of trash into creeks. In 2011 Baguio City’s Irisan Dump also gave way and crashed down the adjacent town of Tuba, Benguet, killing 22 residents. Most infamous in 2000, hundreds were killed when a 70-foot tower of junk crumbled onto scavengers and homes. Hidalgo’s NGO, the Eco-Waste Coalition, is asking the government for stricter enforcement of the 2001 law.

Operators of illegal dumps have the temerity to resist landfilling. In Obando, Bulacan, one such dumper tried to sic the Supreme Court on a sanitary landfill builder; fortunately its bid for a writ of Kalikasan failed. The dumper once hired fake environmentalist-residents to picket the construction of the landfill. That ploy failed too, as the builder quietly went on cleaning up the Manila Bay of plastic litter. Today the builder is replanting with mangroves the Meycauayan-Marilao-Obando river system, listed in 2007 as one of The World’s Worst Polluted Places. But the dumper’s harassments have delayed the opening of the landfill — and the employment of a full staff complement.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

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