Region 8 conducts first Solid Waste Management summit

By Philippine Information Agency (PIA 8)
December 17, 2007

TACLOBAN CITY, Leyte  –  The First Eastern Visayas Regional Summit was conducted on December 14, at the SMED Center, Capitol Site, Tacloban City with local government chief executives, heads of Regional line agencies and non-government organizations from all over the Region in attendance.

The theme for the summit is "Enhancing Partnerships for Effective Solid Waste Management," a very appropriate theme according to many local government executives who are often blamed, even by the Environmental Management Bureau, for the non implementation of RA 9003.

The local chief executives said that instead of pointing fingers, all the stakeholders should rather help one another so that the local government units could come up with alternative solid waste management as the prescribed sanitary land fill which is too expensive, even cities could not afford to install it.

Present were Atty. Zoilo Andin, Jr. of the National Solid Waste Management Commission Secretariat, JICA Representatives Mr. Masashi Watanabe and Takashi Goto, Director Albert Magalang of the EMB Central Office and who was designated as National Representative to the Kyoto Protocol and EMB Region 6 Director Bienvenido Lipayon who is actually from Tanauan, Leyte, and who is the National Project Manager.

The State of the Philippine Solid Waste Management and DAO 9 on the closure and rehabilitation of existing dumpsites and DAO 10 on Categorized Disposal Facilities, was presented by Atty. Zoilo Andin Jr. The Clean Development Mechanism was presented by Mr. Albert Magalang, CDM Technical Evaluator of the DENR while the overview of the Solid Waste Management in Eastern Visayas was presented by EMB 8 Regional Director Letecia Maceda.

Engr. Jannet Y. Tagaza, Science Research Specialist Technical Staff of the National Solid Waste Management Commission, presented the Site Suitability Assessment Criteria for Sanitary land fill.

EMB Region 6 Director Bienvenido Lipayon, national project manager of the Solid Waste Management for LGUs Project with the GTZ presented an overview of the project while Engr. Ma. Victoria F. Ricania, deputy team leader, presented an overview of the GTZ-AHT SWM4LGUs Projects in the Visayas.

Calbayog City Mayor Mel Senen Sarmiento presented a sharing of Local Authority Experiences and best practices on solid waste management strategy.