In the pursuit of sustainable development, the protection of public health and the environment should not be neglected. The proper management of waste is meant to safeguard resources. To improve its management of solid waste, the Philippines enacted RA No. 9003, otherwise known as the Philippine Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (ESWMA) of 2000, which enunciates the government's policy of "adopt[ing] a systematic, comprehensive and ecological program of solid waste management program". Some of the salient provisions of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the ESWMA pertain to the following:
a. The creation of Solid Waste Management (SWM) Board in Metro Manila, every province, city and municipality and a SWM Committee in every barangay;
b. The formulation of a National Waste Management Framework;
c. Submission of Local Government Solid Waste Management Plans;
d. Conversion of open dumpsites into controlled dumpsites;
e. Conversion of controlled dumpsites into sanitary landfills; and
f. Establishment of a National Solid Waste Management Fund.
The National Solid Waste Management Framework provides for the reduction, reuse, and recycling (3Rs) of municipal solid wastes and treatment of the hazardous components and residual waste management through sanitary landfills or the use of alternative technologies to process and or treat the waste. The policy is people-centered, where citizens are expected to play a major role in segregating solid waste at source (household level).
Compliance with the ESWMA, however, has been weak and the targets set therein have yet to be attained:
a. Only 338 LGUs have completed their Solid Waste Management Plans or 20.9 percent of the 1,610 cities and municipalities have completed their Solid Waste Management Plans. In Metro Manila, only eight out of 17 cities and municipalities (47 percent) have complete plans;
b. Nationwide, only 7,680 out of 42,000 barangays are covered by Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) for a compliance rate of 18.28 percent. In Metro Manila, 685 out of 897 barangays are covered by MRFs, or a compliance rate of 76 percent; and
c. Of 1,205 disposal facilities in the country, 1,172 are open and controlled dumpsites, and only 33 are sanitary landfills serving 75 LGUs nationwide, for a compliance rate of only 2.7 percent. In Metro Manila, there are two disposal facilities. There is a controlled dumpsite in Payatas scheduled for closure by the end of 2010; the other is a sanitary landfill in Navotas. Most Metro Manila LGUs dispose of their residual wastes in sanitary landfills outside the metropolitan area.
Each Filipino generates between 0.30 and 0.684 kg. of solid waste daily, depending on where this occurs. NCR posted the highest waste generation rate of about 0.7 kg per capita per day, while ARMM is the lowest with 0.30 kg per capita per day. Total waste generation is 35,154 tons per day, or 12.83 million tons every year.
Upfront capital costs of SWM are high, thus limiting the financial capacity of LGUs to invest in such projects. The limited investment capacity of LGUs and the perceived low willingness of LGU constituents to pay for SWM services have been considered as the main reasons for the underperformance in achieving the ESWMA targets.
To augment the financial capability of LGUs, the revised NG-LGU Cost-Sharing Framework for SWM was approved in 2009 allowing NG to provide grants to LGUs of up to 40 percent of the total cost of a SWM project. Table 5.8 shows the NG-LGU cost-sharing framework.
Issues and Challenges
Notwithstanding various initiatives in the sector, several issues and challenges still remain to be addressed, notably the following:
a. the slow progress in the implementation of the ESWMA;
b. the lack of short- and long-term solutions to properly address problems on SWM;
c. overlapping national and local policies;
d. the need for massive implementation of 3Rs at the Household and Barangay level;
e. the need to improve and upgrade the national database for SWM;
f. the lack of sufficient trained personnel at the national and local level; and
g. the need to fully utilize the National Ecology Center (NEC) and the Regional Ecology Centers (RECs).