BULACAN GOV. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado complained of the stench coming out of the open dumpsite in Apalit town, and the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) Central Luzon office promptly “considered” the forced closure of the dump.
The governor, whose residence is within a one-kilometer radius from the dump sited at the Apalit-Calumpit boundary line, was reported by rising journalist Charlene Cayabyab in Sun-Star Pampanga to have “expressed some health concerns caused by the foul odor coming from the open dumpsite.”
“We are considering Gov. Alvarado as an oppositor. That could give us a ground for a forced closure of the open dumpsite.” So was one Belly Cabeso, identified as project head of the EMB-Solid Waste Management Team, quoted as saying.
Already, a notice of violation has been served the Apalit local government, Cabeso furthered.
Blessed is Governor Alvarado. With but one gripe, the EMB went to maximum overdrive in “implementing” the law.
Cursed are the people of Porac and Angeles City. For 20 years they have suffered the stench and flies rising out of the hog and poultry farms in the localities. For seven years, they have been exposing, denouncing, damning, rallying against the sources of their affliction. Only for the EMB to tell them: Most of the piggeries and poultry farms had already complied with anti-pollution requirements of the government.
There is clear double standard here. Some – like Alvarado and the hog and poultry farms – are more favored than all the others.
So what gives now with the announcement that on Wednesday, September 29, that the EMB started in Porac the “massive inspection of some 40 poultry and hog farms, including backyard hog raisers in various barangays”?
So, what else is new? But the number of poultry and hog farms now at “some 40” instead of 14 as the EMB consistently told oppositors before Vice Mayor Dexter David revealed the actual number during the protest rally of September 22 .
Indeed, what else is new with this “massive inspection,” given that – as we wrote here only last Tuesday – EMB Director Lormelyn Claudio in that same rally already proclaimed that: a) most of the piggeries and poultry farms had already complied with anti-pollution requirements of the government; b) six of the piggeries which were non-compliant were issued notices of violations (NOV) of environmental laws and were told to immediately comply with anti-pollution requirements; c) while the problem on odor was “not in the mandate” of her office, her team had already performed on Monday (September 20) the expensive “ammonia and hydrogen sulfide test” at the piggeries and poultries to determine whether the emissions causing foul odor were within government standards; and d) if the results of the test reveal adverse results, the issue would be brought to the attention of the local government of Porac for action.
Yet another “inspection” by the EMB meant to produce the same results so as to re-affirm the findings of all the other “inspections” – a clean bill of health to the hog and poultry farms, the people be damned.
So why can’t we give EMB the benefit of the doubt even in just this one instance?
Because we’ve been had in previous instances, and there’s all possibility of us being had anew with this one. To refresh ageing memory:
On September 7, at the Fortune Restaurant it was agreed among City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez , Angeles Mayor Ed Pamintuan, Porac Mayor Condralitio de la Cruz, DENR-3 Executive Director Ricardo Calderon, Ruperto Cruz of the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement,and Claudio herself that they each name a coordinator to a task force led by the EMB to monitor the hog and poultry farms. Claudio asked the assembly to give her “two weeks within which to provide results.”
That was the last heard of the task force, the PGKM coordinator never contacted, and Claudio proclaiming the monitoring results during the rally, a day after her asked-for two weeks lapsed.
For last Wednesday’s “massive inspection,” the PGKM received an invitation for its coordinator to join the team in the afternoon of the same day, with the inspection slated that same morning.
Only an idiot will fail to sense some rigging there.
And then there was the media report that “The nine-man inspection team lead (sic) by inspection leader Doreen Torres met with Mayor Condralito Dela Cruz and Vice Mayor Dexter David to effectively identify all backyard hog raisers in the town.”
That is a perverse sense of the Three Magis asking Herod to lead them to the Christ Child.
“We are glad that the EMB has now taken steps to inspect the hog farms. We hope that this event would eventually identify those farms that are not complying with sanitary and environmental standards.” So was David quoted in the Sun-Star Pampanga report.
To repeat David’s quote: “…the EMB has now taken steps to inspect the hog farms.” Only now? Just this past Wednesday?
So did David utterly repudiate Claudio’s September 20 inspections and definitively negated all the results announced by Claudio in the rally.
Yet another slip showed with Porac’s top honchos saying that “municipal officials were not allowed to join the inspection teams to show fairness and transparency in the inspection.”
A blatant lie there as “the (inspection) team is augmented by teams from the municipal sanitary office…”
Fairness and transparency, your sphincter ani. The head of the municipal sanitary office was precisely one of those asked by the protestors to roll for allegedly colluding with the pig-poultry polluters.
In the absence of the active participation of representatives of the PGKM, the Krusada Kontra Amoy, the Save Sapang Balen Movement of Auxiliary Bishop Ambo David and other environmental groups like the Green Youth Brigade of Louie Reyes, any and all inspections of the hog and poultry farms of Porac and Angeles City will redound to nothing but moro-moro presentations co-produced by the farm operators and local government units, starred in and directed by the EMB.
Shame.
The governor, whose residence is within a one-kilometer radius from the dump sited at the Apalit-Calumpit boundary line, was reported by rising journalist Charlene Cayabyab in Sun-Star Pampanga to have “expressed some health concerns caused by the foul odor coming from the open dumpsite.”
“We are considering Gov. Alvarado as an oppositor. That could give us a ground for a forced closure of the open dumpsite.” So was one Belly Cabeso, identified as project head of the EMB-Solid Waste Management Team, quoted as saying.
Already, a notice of violation has been served the Apalit local government, Cabeso furthered.
Blessed is Governor Alvarado. With but one gripe, the EMB went to maximum overdrive in “implementing” the law.
Cursed are the people of Porac and Angeles City. For 20 years they have suffered the stench and flies rising out of the hog and poultry farms in the localities. For seven years, they have been exposing, denouncing, damning, rallying against the sources of their affliction. Only for the EMB to tell them: Most of the piggeries and poultry farms had already complied with anti-pollution requirements of the government.
There is clear double standard here. Some – like Alvarado and the hog and poultry farms – are more favored than all the others.
So what gives now with the announcement that on Wednesday, September 29, that the EMB started in Porac the “massive inspection of some 40 poultry and hog farms, including backyard hog raisers in various barangays”?
So, what else is new? But the number of poultry and hog farms now at “some 40” instead of 14 as the EMB consistently told oppositors before Vice Mayor Dexter David revealed the actual number during the protest rally of September 22 .
Indeed, what else is new with this “massive inspection,” given that – as we wrote here only last Tuesday – EMB Director Lormelyn Claudio in that same rally already proclaimed that: a) most of the piggeries and poultry farms had already complied with anti-pollution requirements of the government; b) six of the piggeries which were non-compliant were issued notices of violations (NOV) of environmental laws and were told to immediately comply with anti-pollution requirements; c) while the problem on odor was “not in the mandate” of her office, her team had already performed on Monday (September 20) the expensive “ammonia and hydrogen sulfide test” at the piggeries and poultries to determine whether the emissions causing foul odor were within government standards; and d) if the results of the test reveal adverse results, the issue would be brought to the attention of the local government of Porac for action.
Yet another “inspection” by the EMB meant to produce the same results so as to re-affirm the findings of all the other “inspections” – a clean bill of health to the hog and poultry farms, the people be damned.
So why can’t we give EMB the benefit of the doubt even in just this one instance?
Because we’ve been had in previous instances, and there’s all possibility of us being had anew with this one. To refresh ageing memory:
On September 7, at the Fortune Restaurant it was agreed among City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez , Angeles Mayor Ed Pamintuan, Porac Mayor Condralitio de la Cruz, DENR-3 Executive Director Ricardo Calderon, Ruperto Cruz of the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement,and Claudio herself that they each name a coordinator to a task force led by the EMB to monitor the hog and poultry farms. Claudio asked the assembly to give her “two weeks within which to provide results.”
That was the last heard of the task force, the PGKM coordinator never contacted, and Claudio proclaiming the monitoring results during the rally, a day after her asked-for two weeks lapsed.
For last Wednesday’s “massive inspection,” the PGKM received an invitation for its coordinator to join the team in the afternoon of the same day, with the inspection slated that same morning.
Only an idiot will fail to sense some rigging there.
And then there was the media report that “The nine-man inspection team lead (sic) by inspection leader Doreen Torres met with Mayor Condralito Dela Cruz and Vice Mayor Dexter David to effectively identify all backyard hog raisers in the town.”
That is a perverse sense of the Three Magis asking Herod to lead them to the Christ Child.
“We are glad that the EMB has now taken steps to inspect the hog farms. We hope that this event would eventually identify those farms that are not complying with sanitary and environmental standards.” So was David quoted in the Sun-Star Pampanga report.
To repeat David’s quote: “…the EMB has now taken steps to inspect the hog farms.” Only now? Just this past Wednesday?
So did David utterly repudiate Claudio’s September 20 inspections and definitively negated all the results announced by Claudio in the rally.
Yet another slip showed with Porac’s top honchos saying that “municipal officials were not allowed to join the inspection teams to show fairness and transparency in the inspection.”
A blatant lie there as “the (inspection) team is augmented by teams from the municipal sanitary office…”
Fairness and transparency, your sphincter ani. The head of the municipal sanitary office was precisely one of those asked by the protestors to roll for allegedly colluding with the pig-poultry polluters.
In the absence of the active participation of representatives of the PGKM, the Krusada Kontra Amoy, the Save Sapang Balen Movement of Auxiliary Bishop Ambo David and other environmental groups like the Green Youth Brigade of Louie Reyes, any and all inspections of the hog and poultry farms of Porac and Angeles City will redound to nothing but moro-moro presentations co-produced by the farm operators and local government units, starred in and directed by the EMB.
Shame.
