Julius Rocas

Narito ang buong artikulo na isin­u­lat ni Gerard "Dok" Nativi­dad, isang guro at bantay-​kalikasan ng Paman­tasang De La Salle Das­mariñas tungkol sa nakak­aba­ha­lang pag­bubukas ng isang land­fill sa bayan ng Ter­nate, Kabite.

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a pro­posed land­fill threat­ens mts palay palay/ mataas na gulod national park (better known to us moun­taineers as Pico De Loro).. please read and please spread the word.. we really really need every help we can get with regards to this issue. -- Gerard "dok" Natividad

It was during the first months of the year 2006 when vig­i­lant Cavite-​based envi­ron­men­tal groups, Non-​Government Orga­ni­za­tions (NGOs), People’s Orga­ni­za­tions (POs), reli­gious, aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions, and others first heard of a star­tling project that caused a once peace­ful and silent upland munic­i­pal­ity to engage into a height­ened level of aware­ness and to unite in action oppos­ing a multi-​million peso project in their area.

A pro­posal for a san­i­tary land­fill that would cater for the province’s so-​called waste man­age­ment prob­lem was sub­mit­ted to the office of the Provin­cial Gov­er­nor by its pro­po­nent, Envi­ron­save, Inc. An esti­mated 8 hectare piece of land just at the foot­steps of a National Park would serve as cradle for wastes gen­er­ated by a whole province. As if inad­ver­tent, the pro­posed site is located within the area of the quar­ry­ing company- Cavite Ideal (better known as Cavdeal), who hap­pens to be the same people behind the land­fill project. These series of events even­tu­ally led to the for­ma­tion of a community-​based, people’s orga­ni­za­tion called Ter­nateños Against Land­fill Asso­ci­a­tion (TALA) com­pris­ing of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous sec­tors in Ter­nate, Cavite. A con­crete exam­ple of a clas­sic com­mu­nity orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple wherein envi­ron­men­tal groups, NGO’s and the like, coming from out­side the com­mu­nity facil­i­tated the basic infor­ma­tion with regards the issue and “which cor­re­spond­ingly stim­u­late local ini­tia­tive and lead­er­ship as the pri­mary instru­ment of change.” (Polson, In The Lasal­lian Way towards social trans­for­ma­tion (p.100) Lasal­lian Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Center)

This truly is an effec­tive strat­egy of par­tic­i­pa­tory, people-​centered and area-​based ini­tia­tives to address the land­fill issue. With the col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts being done by dif­fer­ent con­cerned sec­tors, manual and tech­ni­cal sup­port sys­tems to address the land­fill issue has greatly mate­ri­al­ized. Rang­ing from dia­logues with the Local Gov­ern­ment Units, con­sul­ta­tive meet­ings and pre­sen­ta­tions with both the pro­po­nent and stake­hold­ers, data gath­er­ing and inquiries with legal coun­sels and tech­ni­cal experts, ground-​working and paper-​trailing the dif­fer­ent doc­u­ments con­cern­ing the project, and also, there had been 4 major ral­lies and mobi­liza­tions which reflects advo­cacy lead­ing to action through a peace­ful yet active non-​violent dis­play of deep com­mu­nity concern.

All these efforts even­tu­ally led to an empow­ered PO and a well-​coordinated and con­sorted effort to oppose the project. During the course of all these, var­i­ous stand­points and argu­ments came to light on why there is a dire need for the project not to push through. Listed below are some of these rea­sons as well as steps done by the groups:

• We believe this to be oth­er­wise. We have yet to deter­mine this by an actual site visit and GPS reading.
• The pro­posed site for the land­fill is sit­u­ated right beside? the buffer zone of a national park as pro­claimed in Oct. 26, 1976 by then Pres­i­dent Fer­di­nand Marcos under Proc. No. 1594 “Declar­ing Mts. Palay-​palay/ Mataas na Gulod and vicini­ties sit­u­ated in the munic­i­pal­i­ties of Ter­nate and Maragon­don, province of Cavite and the munic­i­pal­ity of Nasugbu, province of Batan­gas, island of Luzon as a National Park, Game refuge and bird sanctuary.”

Just this year, Pres­i­dent Gloria Maca­pa­gal Arroyo issued Proc. No. 1315 “Declar­ing Mts. Palay-​palay/ Mataas na Gulod National park as Pro­tected Area which shall be known as Mts. Palay-​palay Mataas na Gulod Pro­tected Land­scape.” Signed this June 27, 2007.Thus, being declared as a pro­tected area, this ought to have stricter poli­cies and guide­lines favor­ing the anti-​ternate land­fill groups. But the procla­ma­tion also led us to doubt that a much grander scheme is at work favor­ing the land­fill. Here are some of the ‘ques­tion­able and dubi­ous” state­ments in the Proc.no.1315.

1. The orig­i­nal land area of the park was 4000 hectares, but it was nar­rowed to 3973.13 hectares as stated in proc. no. 1315.
2. As stated in the procla­ma­tion no.1315, the pro­tected land­scape would now be “sub­ject to pri­vate rights”.
3. When the “tech­ni­cal descrip­tions” of the procla­ma­tion was plot­ted to a topo­graphic map, it showed a dif­fer­ence of area of the delin­eation than that of exist­ing records of the park’s orig­i­nal boundaries

Former Pres­i­dent Marcos issued Procla­ma­tion no.1520 dated Nov.28, 1975 “Declar­ing the munic­i­pal­i­ties of Maragon­don and Ter­nate in Cavite and the munic­i­pal­ity of Nasugbu in Batan­gas province as a Tourist Zone, and for other pur­poses.” which is under the juris­dic­tion of the Philip­pines Tourism Author­ity. Con­trary to what the pro­po­nent says about tourism, the anti-​ternate land­fill groups believes that this facil­ity would only drive away tourists en route to the beaches and mountaineering/trekking des­ti­na­tions in Ter­nate if ever the project might proceed.

Accord­ing to the Imple­ment­ing Rules and Reg­u­la­tions (IRR) of the Repub­lic Act 9003 also known as Eco­log­i­cal Solid waste man­age­ment Act of 2000, as stated in Sec­tion 40. Cri­te­ria for Sit­ting a San­i­tary Land­fill. (d) “The site must be chosen with regard for the sen­si­tiv­i­ties of the community’s res­i­dents.” The project should gain Social Accept­abil­ity from the com­mu­nity con­cern. But the community’s oppo­si­tion to the project is reflected by these courses of actions:

1. Series of ral­lies and mass mobi­liza­tions par­tic­i­pated by the thou­sands around the town of Ter­nate which was also fea­tured in dif­fer­ent tele­vi­sion, radio and print media.
2. Sig­na­ture cam­paign com­pris­ing of 12,000 sig­na­tures of Ter­nate res­i­dents from a pop­u­la­tion of 20,000 which was sub­mit­ted to the Envi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Bureau region 4A (EMB-4A) and the DENR main office to stand as basis for the gov­ern­ment agency not to issue an Envi­ron­men­tal Com­pli­ance Cer­tifi­cate (ECC). But even­tu­ally they did issue an ECC dated Sept.26, 2007.
3. The res­i­dents and orga­nized groups also decided to file a peti­tion to the COM­ELEC Propos­ing By Local Ini­tia­tive the Enact­ment of an Ordi­nance under RA 6735 enti­tled, “An ordi­nance declar­ing Barangay Sapang, Munic­i­pal­ity of Ter­nate, Province of Cavite as being an inte­gral part of the con­tin­u­ing clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the munic­i­pal­ity of Ter­nate as a Tourist zone and fur­ther clas­si­fy­ing Barangay Sapang as a Spe­cial Eco­log­i­cal Zone, pro­hibit­ing the open­ing, con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of any san­i­tary land­fill therein, pro­vid­ing penal­ties for vio­la­tion of this ordi­nance and for other pur­poses,” as a munic­i­pal ordi­nance for the munic­i­pal­ity of Ter­nate, Cavite. Rare is the instance that this type of move is done wherein a given per­cent­age of voting pop­u­la­tion would make a move to enact an ordi­nance. Being this, lawyers from the Com­elec faced a blank wall upon receiv­ing this doc­u­ment. And we are cur­rently on the move and look­ing for assis­tance from legal coun­sels who could shed some light with this type of action.

Accord­ing also to the Imple­ment­ing Rules and Reg­u­la­tions (IRR) of the Repub­lic Act 9003 also known as Eco­log­i­cal Solid waste man­age­ment Act of 2000, as stated in Sec­tion 40. Cri­te­ria for Sit­ting a San­i­tary Land­fill. (e) “The site must be located in an area where the landfill’s oper­a­tion will not detri­men­tally affect envi­ron­men­tally sen­si­tive resources such as Aquifer, Ground­wa­ter reser­voir or water­shed areas.”

Also from the IRR of RA 9003. Penal Pro­vi­sions. Sec­tion 48. Pro­hib­ited Acts (16) “The con­struc­tion or oper­a­tion of land­fills or any waste dis­posal facil­ity on any Aquifer, Ground­wa­ter reser­voir or water­shed area and on any por­tions thereof.”

• The pro­posed site for the land­fill is declared part of the study area by the Local Water Util­i­ties Author­i­ties (LWUA) and the Japan­ese Inter­na­tional Coop­er­at­ing Agency (JICA) issued last 1995 as a Ground­wa­ter Basin and declared also by Bech­tel Engi­neer­ing hired by Puerto Azul Resort as a Water Basin.
• As stated in the “Report on the Geo­log­i­cal assess­ment of the pro­posed san­i­tary land­fill located inside the quarry site of Cavdeal in Ter­nate, Cavite” pre­pared by the Mines and Geo­sciences Bureau (MGB) of the DENR, “Based on the ground­wa­ter avail­abil­ity map of the Philip­pines, the project area has fairly exten­sive and pro­duc­tive Aquifers with aver­age annual poten­tial recharge of 0.3 to 0.8meter.”
• Safe drink­ing water for the sur­round­ing munic­i­pal­i­ties are threat­ened by the facil­ity. Because one of the major haz­ardous by-​products by land­fills are called Leachate. Accord­ing to the Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-​Eau Claire web­site, “Leachate is a poten­tially toxic fluid that could leak from a land­fill site and pol­lute aquifers and sur­face water.”
• Accord­ing to the same report that was released by the MGB, it states that the site “Is located in a creek valley bounded by two high hilly terrains… The creek is part of the trib­u­tary of the Sapang River.” We all know that water always go down stream, having the site as a trib­u­tary for a river would surely be alarm­ing for those living down stream. Con­t­a­m­i­nated water can easily flow to other trib­u­taries posing a threat not only to humans and ani­mals but also plants.

Hydro­logic hazard stated in the “Report on the Geo­log­i­cal assess­ment of the pro­posed san­i­tary land­fill located inside the quarry site of Cavdeal in Ter­nate, Cavite” pre­pared by the MGB indi­cates that “Since the pro­posed area for land­fill site is sit­u­ated on a drainage floor, it is very likely that the area may expe­ri­ence flash flood­ing caused by heavy runoff coming from the upstream area.” Let us not set aside the fact that the site pro­posed is within a quarry site. The capac­ity of the soil to hold mois­ture has already been depleted and that if a flash flood may occur, it could easily boul­ders and rocks that can easily be dis­lodged from the site due to the quar­ry­ing activ­ity. This, again, pose a major threat to the community’s safety and welfare.

Mts Palay palay/ Mataas na Gulod National Park is home to a wide array of flora and fauna and quite a number of endemic and endan­gered species. Stud­ies and researches are being con­ducted in the area both by stu­dents and fac­ul­ties from De La Salle University- Das­mariñas in Das­mariñas, Cavite. And bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion is one of their main thrusts in their field. The national park is one of the iden­ti­fied sites in the book: Key Con­ser­va­tion Sites in the Philip­pines: A Hari­bon Foun­da­tion and Birdlife Inter­na­tional Direc­tory of Impor­tant Bird Areas (IBAs) by Mal­lari, Neil Aldrin, et. al. (2001). And having such a facil­ity in the area may create a big imbal­ance in the ecol­ogy that might affect the sen­si­tive wildlife.

In the pre­sen­ta­tions con­ducted by Envi­ron­save regard­ing the land­fill, one of the com­po­nents of the said facil­ity is a Mate­ri­als Recov­ery Facil­ity, wherein the said land­fill shall be receiv­ing ‘mixed (unseg­re­gated) waste’ from all over the province and that seg­re­ga­tion shall be done on-​site. It is clearly stated again, in the IRR of RA 9003 Arti­cle 2. Seg­re­ga­tion of Wastes. Section21. Manda­tory Seg­re­ga­tion of Solid Wastes. “That seg­re­ga­tion of wastes shall pri­mar­ily be con­ducted at the source, to include house­hold, insti­tu­tional, indus­trial, com­mer­cial and agri­cul­tural sources.” If the facil­ity will be receiv­ing mixed waste, then there would be no effort done at the house­hold level to help reduce, reuse, refuse and recy­cle wastes. The very heart of RA 9003 is that it must be done at source.

Traf­fic and road-​safety also is a major con­cern. If the facil­ity would be cater­ing for all the trash the province would pro­duce then it may create unrest for those living along the high­ways that these trucks would pass by. Foul smell (due to unseg­re­gated wastes), noise pol­lu­tion and safety for both com­muters and pedes­tri­ans at stake if there are an added number of trucks pass­ing a single route to a common des­ti­na­tion. Even if it has ‘trans­fer sta­tions’ it would still not dis­count the fact that trucks would be set to go to these so-​called trans­fer sta­tions as pro­posed by the pro­po­nent. High­ways and road sys­tems will also be sub­jected to damage due to the volume and capac­ity of these bridges and road­ways to ser­vice large and heavy dump trucks.

Based on the reprint of Rachel’s Envi­ron­ment and Health Weekly (#37 Aug10,1987, #116 Feb.14,1989, #617 Sept.24, 1998)

• #37: The U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency says All Land­fills Leak, even those using best avail­able liners.
• #116: Ana­lyz­ing why all land­fills leak.
• #617: Land­fills are dangerous.

Here in the Philip­pines there are quite a number of expe­ri­ences that so-​called land­fill pro­po­nents submit pro­pos­als for a San­i­tary Land­fill that in the end only ends up to be an open dump­site and con­trol dump­site. But, in paper, they all claim to be land­fills. Unfor­tu­nately irre­versible damage has been done to these sites with the cost of both human and envi­ron­men­tal costs. This is true with the “land­fills” located in San Mateo in Rizal, Pay­atas, San Jose Del Monte in Bula­can and even Clark and in Cebu. All of them ended up to be well below of what was expected to be as a “san­i­tary” landfill.

Based also in the offi­cial report released by the MGB, it states that “Geo­graph­i­cally, the project site is cen­tered at coor­di­nates, 120 degrees 41’ 30” East Long. And 14degrees 05’ 57.2” North Lat.” Sup­pos­edly, this coor­di­nates would fall at the center of the pro­posed land­fill site. But when we plot­ted these coor­di­nates, we made a star­tling dis­cov­ery. It cen­tered nowhere near the known land­fill site or even nowhere near Cavdeal, the quarry com­pany beside the site. The said coor­di­nates when plot­ted to a topo­graphic map, fell some­where in the munic­i­pal­ity of Nasugbu, Batan­gas. This being a major dis­crep­ancy in the offi­cial report released by the MGB.

In the study con­ducted by Ten­gon­ciang, et al. 2002, the soil along Ter­nate, Maragon­don, and up to Mag­a­l­lanes are said to be volcanic.

With all these infor­ma­tion at hand, we are call­ing for those who in one way or another could be of help regard­ing this matter. The Office of the Provin­cial Gov­ern­ment (OPG) of Cavite is sup­port­ing the pro­po­nent with regards to the project. But the dif­fer­ent sec­tors con­cerned will not be taking this sit­ting down. Moves have been made also by the Dio­cese of Imus and dia­logues between the dio­cese and the OPG have already been ensur­ing. Sup­port groups coming from out­side Cavite also flour­ished through con­tacts and link­ages of those involved. NGO’s, Pro­fes­sion­als, and other insti­tu­tions are cur­rently work­ing together to offer alter­na­tives and train­ing pro­grams to address this issue.

We, as Lasal­lians must take part in such an under­tak­ing. The Lasal­lian Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Center has been part of the issue since the very begin­ning of the matter, lend­ing a hand during the pre­lim­i­nary meet­ings while orga­niz­ing the com­mu­nity, pro­vid­ing some tech­ni­cal and infor­ma­tion/ edu­ca­tion cam­paign for the enrich­ment of those con­cerned. Coor­di­nat­ing with other link­ages as well as other offices within the Uni­ver­sity for a more holis­tic and syn­er­gic approach to attain­ing Social Trans­for­ma­tion. In the past, we have been part of the clo­sure of the Car­mona Land­fill and oppos­ing the con­struc­tion of the Mag­a­l­lanes Land­fill which even­tu­ally led to the for­ma­tion of the Cavite Greens Coalition- Kalikasan to whom LCDC is also a member. This is a call for action to us Lasal­lians, as part and parcel of a much larger com­mu­nity rather than just being in the con­fines of our walls, let us make a move to inflict the change that we want to see in the society…bearing in mind that all these must be in the con­text of a Lasal­lian touch and in line with the Lasal­lian Guid­ing Principles.

This is a call for action to all those who would want to pre­serve the pris­tine envi­ron­ment of Ter­nate, we as moun­taineers/ envi­ron­men­tal­ists, being the guardians of the moun­tains spe­cially in this case, the national park wherein Pico de Loro is part of.

Gerard S. Nativi­dad
Project Offi­cer, Envi­ron­men­tal Advo­cacy, Lasal­lian Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Center, DLSU-D
Adviser, DLSU-D Moun­taineer­ing Soci­ety
Member, Cavite Green Coalition-​Kalikasan
Member, 505th Search and Rescue Aux­il­iary Group, Inc