Bulacan
Fishers Seek Dump’s Closure
It has been three
years since a barge coming from the coast of Manila Bay would pass by the
shoreline communities of Obando, Bulacan leaving a trail of foul air and
litter-strewn waters. Residents, who have waited long enough for
government authorities to enforce an ordinance that would halt the barge’s
operations, have decided to take things into their own hands to close the
dump.
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
OBANDO, Bulacan – In this coastal town
16 kms north of Manila where fishponds abound, the burst of kwitis
(local fireworks) would usually shoo away birds that prey on bangus
(milk fish) or tilapia fingerlings. But for a week now, fireworks were a
signal for coastal residents to mass up for one single cause – to stop the
garbage-bearing barges.
Coastal villagers have been protesting
the dumping of wastes from Metro Manila for three years. Each day, at
least two barges filled with garbage pass through the river on
the way to the dump in nearby Navotas.
Loaded with at least 800 tons of mixed
waste from the metropolis, each barge sets off from Pier 18 along the
coast of Manila Bay and navigates through the Binuangan Strait before
anchoring at an 11-ha dump, the Navotas Controlled Disposal Facility (NCDF),
along the shores of Navotas, a town in northern Manila.
The Philippine Ecology System Corporation
(Phileco) operates the dump.
From Manila Bay, two barangays
(villages) are on both shorelines of the 50-meter wide Binuangan Strait
– Barangay Salambaw and Barangay Binuangan. Based on government records,
the two barangays have 10,000 residents most of them depending on the
river for food and income.
BOAT BLOCKADE:
Obando folk close ranks to stop the barge
Photo by
Pokus Gitnang Luson |
Rich source
One of the residents, Virgilio del
Rosario, 48, of Salambaw, owns a panti (a fishnet made of nylon)
posted in the middle of the river. He said that three years ago his daily
catch consisted of at least three kilos of shrimps and another three kilos
of alimasag (crab). Since the trash barge started passing by the
river, he is able to catch only a kilo of each, sometimes even less or
none at all.
“Namatay na ang mga similya dahil
sa polusyon” (The pollution [brought about by the garbage] has killed
the fingerlings), he said. Worse, he said, the barge would sometimes pass
through his panti and wreck it.
|
Residents of Binuangan have similar
complaints. Antonio Rivera, 59, used to make a living by harvesting
tahong (mussel) or talaba (oyster) from the riverside.
“Dati, pag hanguan ng talaba o
tahong, parang pyesta dito sa amin. Lahat kami kumikita” (It was like
a fest here every time mussels or oysters are harvested. All of us were
earning), he said.
But those days are gone since the
waters were polluted by waste from industries in the neighboring towns of
Meycauayan, Navotas and Velenzuela. The pollution, he said, has been
aggravated by the Navotas dump that also emits toxic waste into the river.
Inaction
Ricardo de Armas, chairperson of the
fisher folk group Pamalakaya-Bulakan (Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang
Mamamalakaya) and a resident of Salambaw, assailed the local government
for its inaction on the village folk’s clamor to stop the barge from
passing by their communities and closing the dump.
On June 15 last year the Bulacan
provincial council passed Municipal Ordinance No. 03 that prohibits the
barge from passing by the Binuangan Strait. Apparently the ordinance
remains on paper.
De Armas challenged local government
officials to implement this order to protect the river and the people from
the hazards to their livelihood and health.
In a statement on April 28, the Oppose
Dumpsite (Obando People’s Alliance Against Dumpsite), accused the NCDF of
failing to secure an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC). NCDF, the
group also said, violates the Provincial Environmental Code (PEC) that
prohibits “the dumping or disposal of solid waste into the sea and any
body of water in Bulacan including shorelines and riverbanks.”
De Armas said they would keep their
vigil along the river until government enforce the ordinances and punish
the NCDF for polluting the waters of Obando and neighboring towns.
Harassment
The barangay residents’ protest,
however, is being met reportedly with harassment and intimidation by the
coast guard, the military and police. At around 5 p.m. on April 29, an
army platoon arrived in Binuangan and occupied the village’s day care
center for their temporary detachment. The boatman who brought them in
told Bulatlat that the soldiers came from the neighboring town of Hagonoy.
Residents said the soldiers conducted
house-to-house inspection looking for three leaders of the fisherfolks’
organization, the residents said.
In the morning of April 30, the
platoon-size military unit was reinforced by 18 members of the Philippine
National Police (PNP)-Provincial Mobile Group (PMG) and 15 coast guard
crew. They tried to break the picket line of about 1,500 residents from
Binuangan and some neighboring villages along the river. The tension
lasted for about 15 minutes. With reports from
Pokus Gitnang Luzon / Bulatlat
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