Cheers to Customs, jeers to EMB

Bencyrus Ellorin .

WE thought the confiscation and return of Korean waste that found its way and Tagoloan and Villanueva towns was enough warning to stop this illegal trade.

We thought wrong.

The problem is that the government’s environmental watchdog, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and its line bureau the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) are either collectively incompetent or in cahoots with environmental law violators.

Shame on you!

Cheers to an environmentalist Customs office for wrestling with these international garbage traders. But left alone, the Bureau of Customs cannot do it. Let them also do with the same gusto their other functions and mandates.

Cheers to Mindanao International Container Terminal Customs Collector John Simon for his vigilance against imported garbage.

As a rule, garbage cannot be traded internationally. They use terms like “processed engineered fuel” for incineration as the case of the Australian waste. It is essentially garbage. Philippine laws do not only prohibit importation of garbage, it also prohibits incinerations.

It seems that our laws aside from being violated also have loopholes. With the impunity of garbage importation in the guise of whatever, we expect the good congresswoman of the 2nd District of Misamis Oriental, Juliette Uy, to include the review of laws on incineration and waste importation in her legislative agenda.

The wastes from Hong Kong, China are more dangerous. Electronic wastes are corrosive and contain heavy metals like mercury and lead.

There should be no excuses. We have our own garbage problem to contend with.

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I disagree with people who say hugawan ang mga Pinoy. The real hugawan are the industrial countries. Although you do not see garbage litter around their public places, say, in Tokyo or Seoul, that does not mean they are clean. What you see are just polished plumbing. No matter how shiny, shit runs into these plumbings.

Cheers too to the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office for finally implementing, at least in Barangays 1 to 40 the “no segregation, no collection” policy.

(The author is a former journalist with experience in managing and editing online news portals here and abroad. He is now a public relations consultant and political campaigner. One of the social media groups he co-administered was a finalist in Globe’s Tatt award in 2012.)