BAGUIO CITY March 22 – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan admitted the city’s existing sewerage and garbage fees are already out dated and not sufficient to sustain existing initiatives to address the garbage disposal problem of the local government, particularly the hauling of its residual waste to the sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac.
The local chief executive pointed out the combined annual collection of garbage and sewerage fees is not even sufficient to bankroll the huge expenses of the local government for the hauling of the city’s residual waste outside the city while awaiting the a long-term solution to the garbage disposal problem.
City Accountant Antonio L. Tabin reported that for 2016, the City Treasury Office collected more than P27 million in garbage fees and more than P15 million in sewerage fees or a combined total of more than P42 million.
However, Domogan revealed the local government is spending some P80 to P85 million in garbage hauling and payment of tipping fees to the Tarlac landfill annually for the city’s residual waste which means that the other city resources are heavily subsidizing the hauling cost and tipping fees of the city.
“We have to start studying the possibility of increasing our garbage and sewerage fees which were the fees fifteen years ago. We have to work on the available funds for the purpose but the members of the City Council should now consider approving the proposed increase in the fees to help sustain our efforts to solve our garbage problem while we are weighing our options for long-term solutions to the garbage problem,” Domogan stressed.
Earlier, the local government deputized the different barangays to collect the garbage fees from their constituents that will in turn grant them a 70 percent share from their collections while the 30 percent will be remitted to the city’s coffers.
Under Tax Ordinance No. 001-2001, every household in the city is required to pay P20 monthly which could be either collected every month or one time to be used for the city’s environment and sanitary services that includes garbage hauling and payment of tipping fees.
Aside from the desired improvement in the collection of garbage fees from residents, Domogan added the local government is studying potential alternatives in the formulation of a long-term solution to the city’s garbage problem, particularly the putting up of an integrated solid waste disposal facility in the city-owned 139-hectare property in Sto. Tomas School Area and the support of the city to the proposed final mine rehabilitation of Benguet Corporation (BC) for its Antamok open pit site where it plans to convert it into a sanitary landfill project with a waste-to-energy component.
He emphasized the putting in place of long-term solutions to the city’s garbage problem should not serve as an excuse for residents not to comply with the segregation of waste at source or the recycle, reuse and retrieval of waste to sustain efforts to reduce the volume of garbage being hauled out of the city and help the local government reduce its expenses in the hauling of waste to Tarlac.**By Dexter A. See
