“WILL be there and everywhere/Here, there and everywhere.” This must be the theme song now for Cagayan de Oro’s uncollected garbage that’s threatening to become mountains as they occupy the city’s streets.
Before this garbage problem, I avoided looking at the city and its traffic and street vendors as I traveled from uptown to downtown and vice versa by writing this column. Now, the more I’m bent on writing columns in these travels, to avoid seeing the uncollected garbage.
I live in a village where garbage collection has a regular schedule. Therefore, the garbage here never reaches the point of no return when it has become a mountain attracting flies, rats, stray cats, stray dogs, and scavengers.
But just because the garbage here is always collected doesn’t mean the village’s residents will be safe from the side effects of living in a dirty city. They might have contracted gastroenteritis, too, if they happened to eat at the downtown mall’s restos and cafes when the mall’s water reservoir had unidentified floating species.
As city hall is busy collecting payments for business permits, real property taxes, and other fees and charges, its services don’t reflect the amount of money that’s under its control. Where does the money go?
City hall seemingly doesn’t care anymore for the Cagayanon, and I have no idea whom it cares for. Its favorite contractors? Its favorite suppliers? Its favorite campaign donors?
If city hall truly cares for the Cagayanon, it will do its best A for A-fort in collecting garbage ASAP.
Anyone who lives in a house always throws away his garbage daily. The stench is enough to make him gag if the garbage remains inside the house and in his dirty kitchen. So, how and why is city hall able to withstand the sight of garbage? It wears blindfolds and face masks when it’s traveling from city hall to other parts of the city?
Garbage can clog the drainage system during floods, it causes diseases, it attracts all sorts of unwanted species, and it makes the city look bad. Any tourist who visits the city and sees the garbage will most probably decide to skip CDO in his next travel to Camiguin and Bukidnon.
CDO does have its own tourist spots but they’re not the unique kind, a tourist can still find them in other places outside of CDO sans the garbage, the gastroenteritis, the floods.
El Nido, for one, is the best tourist spot in Pinas. If it has uncollected garbage that’s causing diseases in its islands, will tourists still go there? Hmmm. Imagine jumping from a boat as you look forward to having breakfast in one of its islands, only to jump on a pile of sh*t. A foreign tourist will always have other options: Maldives, Bali, Santorini, Crete. So, goodbye, Pinas.
As for the earthquakes, they’re nature’s way of reminding us that sh*t happens.
The sh*t coming from the garbage, gastroenteritis, and floods, though, are preventable.
It’s the last quarter of the year. If there are items in city hall’s 2025 to-do list that have not been achieved yet, this is the time to climb the ladder to their respective successes. Now na.
