Liberating value of dumpsite closure

Bencyrus Ellorin

“Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.” -Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed

THE closing of the dumpsite at Upper Dagong, Barangay Carmen is a liberating act of the administration of Mayor Oscar Moreno.

Last year, with the new City Council presided over by Vice Mayor Kikang Uy, the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office, finally got the financial support to close the dumpsite, equipped with all necessary mitigating measures to contain bad odor and other pollutants. A supplemental budget was approved in December last year to finish the modern, RA 9003-compliant sanitary landfill in barangay Pagalungan.  And the rest is history. The ceremonial closing was done last April 17 and the new sanitary landfill opened the next day.

While true that indeed there is money in waste, there is a better way of fulfilling that. After three years of being stifled by moribund politics exercised by the former City Council, City Hall found the resources to go with political will to finally close the toxin-spewing dumpsite.  Actually, the law mandates the local governments to close the dumpsite 10 years ago. It’s only that the former kingpin of the city played to crowd, projecting itself as fighters for the poor, thus refusing to disturb residents Upper Dagong.

Not only is the closure of the dumpsite a long-time face of poverty this side of the planet, a fulfillment of the mandate of the law – the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2003 or RA 9003, it liberates the people making a living from other people’s refuse from subhuman conditions.

Residents in the dumpsite are exposed to all kinds of pollutants and disease-carrying organisms. But people living near the dumpsite have adapted to their squalor, perhaps taking comfort that earning three meals a day far outweighs the threat of getting sick in the future. Indeed, the poor have very short foresight. Survival is now.

There are however birth pains, so to speak. People who have become dependent with the dumpsite, the mangaykayays or waste pickers are worried they no longer have their usual livelihood. Long before the closure, these waste pickers have been made aware that they cannot forever depend on the dumpsite and eventually it will be closed. As a safety net, a cooperative has been organized for them to operate materials recovery facility. The outsourced garbage collected IPM has also been tasked to give priority to former waste pickers in the hiring of street sweepers and/or collectors. Still many resisted.

Paulo Freire in his obra maestro Pedagogy of the Oppressed said:

“The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.”

And many thought they deserve to be there. The fact however is that government should have not allowed them to be exposed to the dangers of living near the dumpsite. It was a disservice to allow these people to live is squalid conditions.

The opposition of some waste-pickers, being cheered by mouthpieces of the moribund ideology of the past administration, is easy to understand and engage. It is but a manifestation of how bad politics dehumanizes people.

Engaging with the waste pickers is pedagogic.

When we were in college, we were asked to immerse in poor communities. The default location then was Upper Dagong in Barangay Carmen–yes, that dumpsite community. We go home guilt tripping after bearing witness some people actually live from other people’s refuse.

It was where we witnessed systematic structural violence. It was in those immersion the seeds of liberating action were planted in our consciousness.

Now, isn’t it ironic that the waste pickers have internalized so much their oppressed condition, they are resisting change–in fact, fearful of freedom, as Freire thought? The role of government is to assure them that they are being taken care of. Their separation anxiety from their squalid condition soothed.

My reflection then and now remains unchanged that people living in the dumpsite deserve better living conditions.

If at all, the economic dislocation of the waste-pickers is a problem, it is a happy problem that gives meaning to the function of government to liberate people from any kind of oppression.