We are not ready to believe this information. However, we may have to if the situation continues.
We mean, the reason supposedly why the garbage bins delivered in some rural barangays in Davao City more than three years ago have remained undistributed to strategic locations in the recipient villages for residents and establishments to dispose of their garbage.
Yes, we had the opportunity to talk to some of the village chiefs of a few of the garbage bins recipient barangays. The reasons they gave us are similar. In putting together their statements during our separate conversations, it appears that the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) is shifting the responsibility of distributing the plastic garbage bins to the barangay officials.
We see nothing wrong with that escapist strategy. Unfortunately, not all recipient barangays have what it takes to haul the garbage to the sanitary landfill area in New Carmen.
Of course some of the barangays have been given by the city government and a Partylist national lawmaker dump trucks that could be used to bring the garbage bins to where it should be strategic for people to use. But some barangays are not as lucky; they do not have any.
Unfortunately, the barangay dump trucks do not have the equipment to lift the bins to the truck and transfer the garbage to the vehicle’s hold. Meaning, without the lifting equipment the village personnel acting as crew of the hauling team have to unload the garbage from the bin “mano-mano.”
The barangay hauling crew is composed of village functionaries compensated through a measly amount of honorarium. What is more sad of the system is that, according to the barangay captains we have talked with, the village government has to do the hauling of the refuse to the sanitary dumpsite because the responsibility is not included in the current contract entered into by the city government with certain groups.
We could only ponder on the possibility that the delivery of the garbage bins to the rural villages done over three years ago could be one of CENRO’s tactical move to decongest the area or compound where it is stocking materials, maybe old, already unserviceable CENRO vehicles like dump trucks, and some other resources of the city government agency.
One of the barangay captains estimated that each bin filled to the brim with garbage could be about 150 to 250 kilos especially when the garbage content is soaked wet. So who would dare lift the bin manually at a height of over six feet?
We are not saying that what was told us is one hundred percent true. That is why we have some rooms for doubt. But given the status of our sources, we feel we are obligated to let this information out in public hoping that CENRO, or the local government executives of Davao City for that matter, will find time to look into this apparent “mess” and do something to correct it.
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So the Davao Region has continued to be insurgency-free as declared by the military some months back?
That was what the spokesperson of the Police Regional Office (PRO) XI said during a press forum a few days ago.
Well, we would be honest with our take on the matter. We agree one hundred percent. Proof of the claim of P/Maj. Catherine dela Rey of the regional situation is the absence of police or military encounters with rebels for the last many months.
Still another indicator is the unabridged freedom of some vloggers to continuously roam the upland barangays and dealing with natives without police or military escorts and their activities unhampered by any suspicious groups lurking in the depths of the highland forest.
For this feat our police, military and local government officials and the people in the villages deserve our congratulations for a job well done.
Let the peace continue to reign in the entire Davao Region.
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