Garbage: A test of people-centered governance

Garbage, or more precisely solid waste management, is Cebu City’s single biggest community-level problem today. Traffic congestion was once widely thought to be the city’s foremost problem, but not anymore.

As an aside, and speaking only as a resident of Banilad, I have observed better traffic flow in our area during the morning peak hours since the change of city administration last year. What is clear as day is that it is garbage, not traffic or flooding, that can make or break this administration.

So I am not surprised that the mayor now finds himself in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. A city councilor is calling for a probe into the renewed buildup of garbage at the South Road Properties (SRP). Photos show a massive pile of trash along Pond A in the SRP, a site that was meant to serve only as a temporary transfer station.

The current situation is an offshoot of the deadly Binaliw trash slide, which forced the closure of the landfill and triggered a citywide garbage crisis. There is no breathing room after Binaliw. And garbage has become politically combustible too. A pile of trash on prime property is ugly optics. Yet garbage must still be collected and disposed of promptly, because every delay in collection, though less visible than a massive trash pile, is felt by residents who demand regular and reliable garbage service.

Residents are not asking for a grand, complex program. They are asking for garbage collection that follows a clear schedule and canals that are not clogged with solid waste. When residents complain that the garbage collection schedule is unclear, the complaint goes beyond trash collection; it is about whether government can be trusted to deliver even the most basic service promptly.

Residents care less about slogans on sustainability than about whether trucks actually arrive to collect garbage, or whether there are enough trucks to do the job. They want to know why narrow interior areas of the city do not have secondary collection vehicles or transfer points. They also want clear guidance on recycling: what can be thrown away, what can still be reused or recycled, where recyclables should be kept, and where these materials actually go after collection.

But delivering those things requires an organized system at the community level, where puroks can help monitor schedules, report missed collection, and keep the city responsive to what residents actually experience.

Garbage is intensely local. And so are the solutions. The city may own or rent the trucks and sign the landfill contracts, but the first signs of failure appear at the purok or community level. A functioning purok system can help organize residents, monitor collection, report missed schedules, coordinate recycling and cleanup efforts, and identify problem spots where trash is illegally dumped. It should support the city’s primary duty to provide reliable solid waste management.

This is not to romanticize community volunteer work or shift the burden of city failure to residents. The city must still provide trucks, labor, disposal sites, funding, and enforcement. But residents at the purok level can provide what City Hall needs to make the system work better: social trust and organized daily feedback.

Investigate the SRP trash buildup. But after that, the garbage crisis will still be here. The harder and more important question is: Will Cebu City ever institutionalize a community-level solid waste system?

Garbage is a people problem, not merely a problem of trucks and dumpsites, because it tests whether government can organize communities, listen to residents, and respond at the level where waste is actually produced, sorted, collected, or left behind.