Pineda: Let’s clean Pampanga from garbage mess

by JOEL P. MAPILES

 

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO --- “Let us all work to clean Pampanga from garbage mess.”

 

This was the marching order of Governor Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda to all the municipal mayors and 505 barangay captains yesterday during the Solid Waste Management and Disaster Awareness Program held at Benigno S. Aquino Hall, capitol compound here.

 

The governor said the provincial government is very much willing to augment enough budget for the solid waste management should the villages and the municipalities have merged their efforts and resources including their budget to put an end to this long time problem on garbage.

 

Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, concurrent president of the Pampanga Mayors’ League said they shared the league shared the same vision with the governor as he said the mayors are bent to obey the order of the governor to zero-in on of all controlled and open dump sites in the whole province.

Reports have it that the biggest dumping site in the province is the Pampanga River.

 

The governor said before she would allocate budget for the infrastructure projects requested by the barangay officials, she would first asked them to hold a massive clean up drive in their respective communities including the highways, canals and major tributaries.

 

The mayor, on the other hand, said the governor has ordered the mayors to put up six transfer stations for the used of clustered municipalities where in the trucks of the provincial government would pick up the collected garbage for dumping at the Metro Clark Sanitary Landfill.

 

Pineda said she will allocate enough budget for the waste management, however, she asked the mayors and the barangay captains to appropriate 5 percent from their respective municipalities and barangays’ internal revenue allotments particularly from their  20% development fund.

 

Pineda said she is serious in providing funds for the construction of material recovery facilities (MRF) in each of the 505 barangays in the whole province.

 

The governor has also urged the barangay officials to educate the households to start segregating their own waste from the source to minimize its volume and lessen the hauling expenses on a daily basis.

 

Pineda is optimistic that if all stakeholders –households, workers, government officials, civil society, businessmen, among others- would exert efforts in protecting the environment, the illness suffered by the Kapampangans would be lessened.

 

Pineda disclosed that she has already work for the hospitalization of more than 1,000 patients in a span of 30 days and yet, the number of Kapampangans who are seeking health assistance is getting bigger than before.

Hence, the governor concluded that the provincial government should not only intervene on medical assistance but should also look on the causes of the health problems like the environment degradation and abused like the indiscriminate dumping of waste.

 

Environment Management Bureau Regional Director Lormelyn Claudio said she has found a serious partner in the person of the governor as she was impressed that in short period of time, she has managed to gather all local government officials to ask them to start cleaning their barangay and solve their waste problem.