BAGUIO CITY – The city general services office asserted that there was no evil motive when the city’s consultants submitted to the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) the city’s 10-year solid waste management plan for comments and recommendations prior to its submission to the city council for study.
City General Services Officer Romeo D. Concio said that the intent of the consultants in voluntarily submitting the 10-year solid waste management plan to the NSWMC was for critiquing in order to avoid the experience of the 2007 city solid waste management plan that was not acted upon by the Commission and ended up being disapproved.
“We have no other intention when we submitted the city’s 10-year solid waste management plan to the NSWMC but to get their comments and recommendations in order to guarantee its eventual approval in the future,” Concio stressed.
The general services officer said the outright approval of the proposed 10-year solid waste management plan by the NSWMC was a complete surprise since it was only submitted for the Commission’s comments and recommendations. They will no longer be required to defend the plan considering that it was subjected to scrutiny by experts in solid waste management.
According to him, the NSWMC should have returned to the city government the 10-year solid waste management plan once it saw that the endorsement of the city council was material. Instead, it approved the plan even without the city council endorsement although it was clear in their explanation that the council could make amendments which will later be submitted to the Commission for upgrading of the plan.
Concio claimed what is important is that the city already has an approved 10-year solid waste management plan that was completed after he took over the leadership of the city’s solid waste management in 2013, unlike in the past, when the city government operated without an approve plan to base its solid waste programs and projects.
He assured members of the council that the whole plan will not be implemented without the endorsement of the council while the city government is also awaiting the results of existing negotiations between the management of Benguet Corporation (BC) and city officials for the utilization of the company’s open pit site in Antamok, Itogon, Benguet for the city’s integrated solid waste disposal facility.
Under the approved solid waste management plan, the integrated solid waste disposal facility will be situated within the city-owned 139-hectare property in Sto. Tomas Apugan. This includes a centralized materials recovery facility, anaerobic digester, Environmental Recycling system machines, engineered sanitary landfill, health care and medical waste treatment facility and special waste treatment facility.
Concio claimed the plan that was stamped approved by the NSWMC is the first solid waste management plan in the Cordillera that was approved by the Commission, thus, it is something for the city to be proud of./Dexter A. See
