Marikina Not Keen On Recycling
Special Report by: Zelda DT Soriano
The Manila Meteor, Vol. 1. No. 2, July 31,2001

Believe it or not, the famous environmentalist and known leader of the best-managed and cleanest city in the country, former Marikina City Mayor Bayani "BF" Fernando, is anti-recycling.

Recycling is an age-old cry of many environmentalist groups as the most practical, profitable and safest strategy to solve the garbage crisis in the country, particularly in Metro Manila.

But for Fernando, the solution is efficient garbage collection and landfill technology, coupled with creative clean and green projects and enforced with discipline and political will.

He is even challenging the Metro Manila Development Authority ( MMDA) to follow his example after making Marikina the cleanest city in the Philippines, not through recycling but through open dump and values reorientation.

For the past eight years, Fernando led the city with 99-percent efficiency rating in garbage collection, gathering the city wastes in its own open dump, and supporting these efforts with three other clean and green programs—Disiplina sa Bangketa, Squatter-Free Marikina and Save Marikina River.

No Money in Garbage

Fernando says, "Look at the scavengers, if there is money in garbage, these scavengers should be rich by now, but [ they’re] not."

In an interview, the husband of incumbent Mayor Marides Carlos Fernando argued that "to teach 70 million Filipinos and a billion more poor people in the world such a complicated operation as sorting out garbage, starting from the household, is very difficult task."

People die and are replaced by the new born, and it will be an unending struggle that city governments have to endure to educate people on waste management, he added.

The former Marikina City mayor cited Japan’s expenses as an example. "The amount of pamphlets and numerous information materials on garbage-sorting that the Tokyo metropolitan government is giving out is staggering and unending," he said.

Fernando said the primary mission of a city government is to take all the garbage out of the homes, yards and streets and away from people for hygiene and public safety.

Putting up landfills and open dumps will compete with the demands for spaces to live and work in, they added.

Solutions to the garbage problem, they cautioned, should start with the correct definition of the problem and for Fernando, public apathy is the root of the problem.

"Sanay kasing magkanya-kanya ang mga tao, walang pakialam kung ang ginagawa ng isang tao ay nakakaapekto na sa iba. E, ano kung itinambak ni Pedro ang kanyang mga basura sa sidewalk, basta’t wala sa loob ng kanyang bahay o sa kanyang bakuran…ito ang problema, walang disiplina", he said.

In a broader perspective, the NGO Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC) described the garbage problem as a socio-economic issue.

CEC Director Tina Urag says "the garbage problem is similar to the trraffic congestion issue. Both are the result of a bloated population in Metro Manila, of an uneven nationwide development.

"Hindi mo rin masisisi ang mga tao. Mahirap din naman talaga ang buhay sa rural areas dahil walang tunay na lad reform na ipinatutupad ang gobyerno doon. Nagsisiksikan tuloy ang mga tao sa Metro Manila, dumadami rin ang mga basura.

Mahirap I-resolve ang garbage problem by technology alone…socio-economic kasi ang garbage problem (You can’t blame the people. They flock to Metro Manila away from the rural areas where no genuine land reform is implemented by government. As a result, the garbage problem worsens. Addressing the problem through technology alone won’t work because of its socio-economic roots)."

Challenge

The Manila Meteor conducted random interviews among Markina residents last week on the impact of the clean and green efforts of the city government under BF.

Most of them are proud to see their city as the cleanest and best managed in the country.

" Nakakahiyang magkalat dahil alam momg malinis ang paligid," said a cigarette vendor in the city proper. " kaya lang, naapektuhan ang hanapbuhay namin kasi pinagbabawalan kaming magtinda sa sidewalk. Hindi naman namin kayang umupa ng pwesto sa palengke, wala kaming kapital."

The Meteor found Patricia Minguote, 58, discreetly selling cigarettes along the city’s main road. She said that she would run and save her few cigarette packs if the city’s clean and green volunteers chase her.

Minguote said, however, that she favored BF’s clean and green programs. The challenge remains on how to save their livelihood in the process of cleaning Marikina. She’s hoping only, she said, that the people like her will not be swept aside as the new city administration vowed to continue cleaning Marikina streets which was started by BF.

www.marikina.com.ph/not_keen_on_recycling.htm