MORE than 20 years since Republic Act No. 9003 (Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2020) was signed into law, the country nearly doubled the volume of garbage generated, from 9.07 million metric tons in 2000 to 16.63 million metric tons as of 2020 or an 83 percent increase.
This was revealed by the Commission on Audit in its 181-page performance audit report on the government’s Solid Waste Management Program released on May 2.
A copy of the report was forwarded to the office of Secretary Maria Antonio Loyzaga of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) last April 11.
The DENR is the lead agency of the National Solid Waste Management Council (NSWMC) which counts as members the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Agriculture, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines.
Auditors identified the key problems: weak enforcement of the law and political, financial, and technical limitations of local government units (LGUs) in undertaking volume reduction and proper disposal.
To address these issues, they recommended that the NSWMC provide technical, manpower, and financial assistance in enforcing waste segregation, building material recovery facilities (MRFs) and sanitary landfills, and coordination with other related agencies to speed up processing and approval of solid waste management plans.
The audit team noted that MRFs could be an important contributor in reducing garbage volume but there are too few constructed and even fewer are operational.
“As of CY 2021, the country has 11,637 total MRFs only servicing 16,418 (39.05 percent) of 42,046 barangays,” it said.
While the few operational MRFs did their job of segregating discarded items that may still be recycled or repurposed, the LGUs provided little to no assistance in finding markets for these materials.
Trash that are not segregated or turned away from MRFs have to end up somewhere but auditors said the bulk is disposed in illegal dumpsites as many LGUs, particularly the cash-strapped ones, do not have the financial muscle to tackle the problem of building DENR-compliant sanitary landfills.
The report disclosed that the country only has 245 sanitary landfills in operation, which are taking in tons of trash from 478 LGUs — just 29.25 percent of 1,634 provinces, cities and municipalities.
“Due to the limitation in disposal facilities, the operation of the illegal dumpsites could not be avoided in some LGUs,” the audit team said.
When Congress passed RA 9003, there was a plan to pool together resources under the Solid Waste Management Fund in the national treasury to help provide funding for LGUs once their solid waste management plans get the nod of the NSWMC.
“However, more than two decades after the adoption of RA 9003, no initial operating budget had been released by the Department of Budget and Management to the NSWMC despite repeated submission requests for budget allocation,” auditors said.
Likewise, the NSWMC has yet to comply with the requirement under RA 9003 to establish a uniform system for charging tipping fees that landfill operators can demand from LGUs and their hauling contractors.
Based on collated data for the report, some LGUs are paying between P1,400 and P5,831 tipping fee per metric ton compared to just P534 per metric ton for LGUs in Metro Manila.
