PUBLIC Works and Highways Secretary Vince Dizon said Wednesday that cleanup measures must be paired with long-term waste-to-energy solutions to solve the country's garbage problem.
He added that the immense volume of trash clogging waterways requires more equipment to ease the burden of workers and volunteers doing manual cleanup operations.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said that the agency is targeting the removal of at least 100 truckloads of garbage within a week from the Redemptorist Water Channel in Baclaran, Parañaque City.
The sea of refuse was washed into the channel during the recent flooding following torrential rains induced by the southwest monsoon.
Dizon said the trash-catching equipment in the area was overwhelmed by the volume of garbage carried by high tide.
“It seems to be working; it was just really overwhelmed,” he said.
Dizon said the government plans to deploy five more floating backhoes to hasten the cleanup operations.
He called on local government units (LGUs) to improve garbage collection and waste management and urged the public to stop throwing trash into waterways.
“LGUs have to do their share in the proper collection, disposal and waste management. But the public also has a responsibility to properly dispose of its garbage,” Dizon said.
“The situation shows the need for a long-term solution to the country’s waste problem, including the development of waste-to-energy facilities being explored by the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.,” Dizon added.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. inspected the water channel in Baclaran, noting the unprecedented nature of the facility's failure.
“This is the first time this happened here in Parañaque. That sort of thing didn't happen before. It was mainly because there was so much trash, the trash trap was damaged, and there was a massive volume of water pouring down,” the president said in Filipino.
“The amount of rainfall last week is the equivalent of one month’s rainfall, almost 1 meter. That’s why this happened,” Marcos added.
Metropolitan Manila Development Authority General Manager Nicolas Torre III said they are investigating where the garbage came from.
“We saw that there are different types of trash. We think it came from different places surrounding Manila Bay,” he said.
Since Tuesday, a total of 750 cubic meters and 500 metric tons of trash were delivered to the landfill by 45 trucks.
Marcos noted that while the government has opened up choked canals and dredged waterways — some of which had gone undredged for up to 12 years — uncollected trash continues to threaten these gains.
"We open [the canals], but because they are opened, the trash flows into the pumping station and causes everything to clog up," Marcos said.
"We have to go through the entire process of capturing the trash before it enters the city, before it clogs our pumping stations,” he added.
He addressed operational delays in national flood control, revealing that several pumping facilities had suffered long-term neglect, with some lacking basic operational funding for fuel despite being constructed years ago.
“If we don't clean this up, the pumping station gets clogged immediately — that’s how much trash gets in,” he said.
To prevent future blockages and address overflowing landfills, Marcos announced that the administration is accelerating plans for waste-to-energy infrastructure in coordination with the Department of Energy.
“We will continue to study. We already have some very good studies that we are basing our initiatives on and our strategies on. So it might take a little time because the truth is, many of our facilities here are no longer operational and have long been neglected,” he said.
