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Bencyrus Ellorin

I WOULD have wanted to stay in the sidelines of the local campaign and focus on my work in Manila. But certain realities are pulling me home, to get involved.

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I was advised by my doctor to rest last week so I had time to observe the local campaign. My position on local politics has never been hidden. In fact, some time last year, the congressman of the 2nd District called the boss of a national agency where I worked to shut me up. When confronted by local journalists, the 2nd district congressman denied doing so. That meeting in a restaurant was hosted by the congressman after some journalists who simply hate being told by anyone how to do their job, complained publicly of the phone calls and text messages by the congressman to media owners, relatives, and what-have-you to complain about criticisms. I was told, the congressman apologized to one of the journalists but denied the incident involving me.

That is now water under the bridge. I have resigned effective Jan. 31 and has since focused on the small public relations group, I and a couple of friends in Manila had started. I also volunteered in the campaign of the Daang Matuwid coalition senatorial candidate Coop Natcco congressman Cris “Mr. Coop” Paez.

Back here, the campaign for reelection of Mayor Oscar Moreno, 1st District congressman Klarey Uy and the rest of the Team OKKE is doing well. But methinks more people need to lend their voices to address key issues like the impact on the people of the Babag City Council. Let the candidate focus on promoting their candidacies, and methinks, citizens need to factor in the political discourse by articulating the people’s issues.

Thus this idea of putting up a Coalition Kontra Babag. The purpose of this coalition is to sharply expose and oppose the anti-people characteristic of the Emano-led majority in the City Council and the dynasty-building and duplicity of the camp of the 2nd District congressman.

The impact on the lives of the people by the Babag City Council is very serious. They are guilty of criminal neglect in the issue of the closure of the city landfill in Barangay Carmen and in the El Nino response.

By refusing to approve appropriations for the closure of the city landfill despite the submission by the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office  (Clenro) of the program of works and estimates, as demanded by them, they still refused to release the much needed fund. Hell broke loose when the stench from the landfill pervaded the air last February. The Babag City Council and their minions then took no time blaming the Moreno administration for the stench. It took a few days of urgent mitigation work to abate the stench caused in the first place by the criminal neglect of the Babag City Council.

Now that the City Council and the mayor are facing charges from the Eco-Waste Coalition for failure to close the landfill in violation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 (RA 9003), Mayor Moreno will have a chance to explain who really are culpable. In fact, the deadline for the closure of landfills as stipulated in RA 9003 was February 2006. Meaning, the operation of the landfill is a continuing violation of law since the administrations of Dongkoy Emano, Tinnex Jaraula and again Emano (2010-2013). It is only under this administration that systematic plan and work for the closure of the landfill has been implemented, but stalled by the Babag City Council.

As work on the closure of the landfill is delayed courtesy of the Babag City Council, people are directly and continuously exposed to deadly toxins – dioxins and furans – persistent organic pollutants that more deadly than cyanide. These deadly pollutants, methane and other greenhouse gas emissions from landfills are what laws like the RA 9003, the Clean Air Act, UN Stockholm Convention of 2001 and the UN climate change agreements want to eliminate.

If work to eliminate these deadly substances is opposed by the Babag City Council, what does that make them? Killers?

On the other hand, the strong drought caused by El Nino has caused crop damage and water shortage in the uplands of Cagayan de Oro–the city’s agriculture producer. Barangay leaders in upland barangays are pleading on bended knees for the City Council to pass an ordinance declaring a state of calamity so that the city’s Disaster Risk Reduction Management Fund (formerly called calamity fund) can be used to mitigate the impact of the drought. My heart bleeds with Barangay Tignapoloan chairman Jay Roa Pascual over the anti-people Babag City Council.

Much anger has been vented after the killing of farmers demanded rice from government in Kidapawan, North Cotabato last week. This is righteous anger which government should address constructively, not with public relations operations and draconian moves.

Here in our backyards, we have heartless local legislators who refuse to help the victims of El Nino. These people are not just traitors of the public trust bestowed by the sovereign people on them. They are no different from the killers of hungry farmers in Kidapawan.

E-mail: bency.ellorin@gmail.com

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