AGRICULTURE OFFICIAL VISITS AGROFOOD CENTER. Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Operations Edilberto de Luna (right) is briefed by Mayor Ferdinand Tubban (right) and City Agriculturist Gilbert Cawis on the operations of the Balong Agro-food Center during his visit there January 26. The two officials requested de Luna who came to the city to speak during the foundation day celebration of the Kalinga-Apayao State College for funding for the construction of a training center and the fencing of the agricultural complex engaged in the raising of animals and planting materials. Photo by Estanislao Albano, Jr.
TABUK CITY – If the latest attempt of the town of Bontoc in Mtn. Province to solve its garbage woes which has strained its relations with the province of Kalinga will fail, Tinglayan Mayor Fernando Abay has a solution: a lot in Saclit in Sadanga, Mtn. Province.
According to Abay, Bontoc Mayor Pascual Sacgaca told him on January 20 that the town is currently negotiating for the purchase of a six-hectare lot for garbage dumping purposes.
“If they fail to come to an agreement, Mayor Sacgaca said that they will then study my proposal for the purchase of a lot between Sadanga and Saclit where the towns of Bontoc, Sandanga and Tinglayan can construct and MRF (materials recovery facility) to process their garbage,” Abay said.
The proposed site which is in Sadanga town is 30 kilometers from Bontoc and seven kilometers from the center of Tinglayan. The more or less seven hectare flat land located below the national road is co-owned by several members of the Saclit tribe.
Abay said that he has already talked with Mayor Gabino Ganggangan of Sadanga and the barangay captain of Saclit telling them that the three towns could help each other to buy the lot and then ask government agencies and sister cities for assistance in the establishment of a landfill.
Abay said that he proposed the project not only for Bontoc but also for Sadanga and Tinglayan because the two towns are also guilty of dumping their wastes in the river.
Abay warned that if the dumping of solid and liquid wastes go unabated in the next 10 years, the Chico River will “become a Pasig River.”
Previous to coming up with the proposal, Abay has mulled the possibility of filing charges against the town of Bontoc for pollution of the Chico River and against the Department of Environment and Natural Resources “for sleeping on the job.”
He said that he was led to the plan by the observation that in the last 10 years, Bontoc has not been serious in finding a solution to the problem of dumping wastes in the Chico River and that in the case of the river, the DENR has been remiss in its function to manage and preserve the environment.
Abay said that there had been endless talks on the problem in the district health board and also the Regional Development Council (RDC) in which Bontoc representatives have promised to come up with a solution “but they have not even come up with a plan.”
While the negotiations have been going on, according to Abay, the pollution of the Chico River is becoming worse because in addition to Bontoc, the Mtn. Province towns of Bauko, Sabangan and Sadanga as well as Tinglayan in Kalinga have started dumping their wastes into the river.
But Abay insists that on account of its bigger population, Bontoc is still the heaviest polluter of the Chico River.
“I strongly suspect that even the liquid waste of the hospital in Bontoc find its way to the river. You may add to that the backyard piggeries in the town which flush their waste directly into the river,” Abay said.
Abay said that as a very clear sign of how bad the pollution of the river now is, people in Bontoc no longer sell and buy the ugadiw, a small fresh water fish which is considered a local delicacy, because some people say that they have found hospital waste like gauze and tissue in the stomach of the ugadiw.
Abay said that if nothing happens in the negotiations in two months, his town might be forced to “look for a forum like the court.”
“The lawyers I consulted said that we could go to court against Bontoc. According to them, there are already precedents in Metro-Manila,” Abay said. **
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