We will not have a final body count until all those reported missing have been found.
The work at the Binaliw landfill is slow, tedious and dirty. For years, trash has been dumped on the garbage pile until the mountain of refuse collapsed. Dump workers and those at the nearby materials recovery facility (MRF) were buried.
The tragedy at Binaliw landfill calls up a similar collapse a few years ago at the Payatas dumpsite. More than assigning blame, we need a thorough policy review of such sites. The trash our cities generate quickly overwhelms the dumpsites we have designated to contain it.
Binaliw is a fairly young dumpsite. The DENR issued an environmental compliance certificate to the previous operator, ARN Central Waste Management Inc. (ACI), only in November 2017. The next year, the Cebu City government gave a special land use permit to ARN Builders, ACI’s mother firm. The land use permit covered 10 hectares accommodating two landfills with lifespans of five and 16 years.
The Cebu City Council has withheld approval for the dumpsite even as the area received trash from the city. From the start, Cebu residents opposed the project, citing, among other things, safety. Residents in the vicinity of the dumpsite complained about the stench, the swarm of flies and all other possible health hazards brought about by the operation of this facility.
Between May and June 2019, the regional office of the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau issued notices of violations against ACI for improper garbage handling and for missing deadlines for monitoring reports. This was obviously not one of the best-run landfill operations in the country.
ACI acknowledged the notices issued by the DENR-EMB and promised corrective measures. But residents close to the landfill claimed that actual operations did not match the approved permits.
Questions were also raised by some city officials regarding integrity of the P55-million contract awarded ACI. The bidding for the contract was conducted by Cebu City’s Department of Public Service. The debate over the awarding of this contract ended up with then incoming city administrator Edgardo Labella.
Although many environmental questions remained, then Cebu mayor Tomas Osmeña signed a disposal contract with ACI. The city has been using the Binaliw landfill since July of 2017.
In June 2020, the DENR amended the environmental clearance certificate it issued ACI. Additional conditions and safeguards were included, including enhanced monitoring rules. Despite this, landfill operations at Binaliw continued in the most antiquated manner. This landfill operation remained below par.
In January 2023, Prime Waste Solutions Cebu (PWS) stepped in, acquired the area from ACI and took over operations of the dumpsite. A year after, PWS launched what would be the country’s first automated materials recovery facility aiming to reduce to just 20 percent the waste that actually goes to the landfill. New technology arrived, intending to turn trash into fuel – a process different from turning waste into energy directly.
The problems PWS inherited from the original contractor persisted, however. In August 2024, the city’s environmental office claimed the landfill continued to violate the Ecological Waste Management Act. At this time, the transition from a primitive landfill to a modern materials recovery facility was just getting underway.
In September 2024, residents mounted a signature campaign calling for the landfill to be shut down. Then mayor-elect Nestor Archival warned the new operators of the landfill that the entire facility will be shut down if complaints persisted. Archival, however, did not address the questions regarding the city’s own waste management system that saw tons and tons of trash dumped on top of the landfill with neither segregation nor volume control.
Fault piled upon fault. Fresh garbage at the top weighed down on the decomposed material below.
Meanwhile, Cebu island was hit by a major earthquake several months ago. Then rains have been almost continuously pouring, keeping the landfill fully drenched. Some surmise that the quake opened gaps in the trash pile that were soon filled with water. A collapse seemed inevitable.
We will get the full story on this tragedy when all the investigations have been done. That will take months, even years.
In the meantime, there are other landfills across the archipelago quickly filling up with trash even as they may still be employing ancient technology to manage the pile. First Payatas. Then Binaliw. Where next?
Many years ago, when I served on the board of the Development Bank of the Philippines, I had the opportunity to meet with a number of local executives. I tried to interest them in accessing bank financing to build modern sanitary landfills. Building such facilities addressed problems that are years down the road – far beyond the next electoral cycle.
Most of them thought such facilities were too expensive since they involve lining the ground underneath with indestructible material. The lining was important to prevent leeching of toxic fluids down to the water table. The full facility therefore involved not only materials recovery but also water treatment installations.
Needless to say, I failed to convince a single local executive to take out a bank loan and build a sanitary landfill. Economic timelines and political timetables did nAnd so today, our local governments depend on private contractors to deal with their trash. In the case of Payatas, toxic leeching hits the water table near La Mesa dam.