This was disclosed by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) during a two-day summit on the clean-up of Manila Bay which concluded here Friday.
Over a hundred delegates from the government and private sectors from all over Central Luzon gathered here for the summit titled Synergy of Central Luzon Leaders Envisioning a Cleaner Manila Bay in a bid to reverse the bay’s pollution to a level that could make it fit for swimming.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Presbiterio Velasco, Jr., chairman of the Manila Bay Advisory Council, cited a report from DILG indicating that only 23 of the 94 LGUs in Central Luzon have approved solid waste management plan while about 45 percent segregate garbage at their source.
Velasco further not-ed that only 39 LGU’s in the region have effective materials recovery facil-ities while only 58 com-ply with proper residual wastes disposal.
He urged congress-men to fi le amendments to the existing solid waste management law and give LGUs more time to fully comply with all the requirements of law.
“It is difficult for LGUs to comply will all the requirements of the law given their budgetary constraints,” he said.
He said the national government should es-tablish landfi lls, a facility that the law on garbage allows where residual wastes are dumped and processed for re-use.
Velaso urged local government officials and stakeholders to unite in efforts to ensure the cleanliness of channels in Central Luzon that drain into Manila Bay, particularly the Pampan-ga River.
He noted waterways in Central Luzon impact on Manila Bay directly and indirectly.
This, even as Velas-co lauded Pampanga Gov. Lilia G. Pineda as “environmental champion” of Central Luzon.
He noted that under Pineda, the provincial government has provided garbage trucks to municipalities as reward for complying with the stan-dards of the Ecological Solid Waste Manage-ment Law.
Velasco also pointed out the materials recovery facility of the municipal government of Lubao as a good example for all LGUs.
The Supreme Court, to preserve the Manila Bay, had issued a mandamus obligating certain towns to help clean up Manila Bay. The mandamus obligates certain towns affecting the bay to undertake anti-pollution measures in their areas.
