Zero budget, staff cripple solid waste management body – DENR official

MOUNTAIN OF TRASH. A drone picture shows a garbage dump filled with plastics in Rodriguez, Rizal province, Philippines, on November 28, 2024.

Eloisa Lopez/Reuters

Failures in implementing the country's solid waste management law have contributed to the overflowing waste in sanitary landfills

AT A GLANCE

• The National Solid Waste Management Commission in the Philippines is struggling to monitor local governments' compliance with waste management plans due to a lack of budget and staff.
• The commission currently operates with a budget of only around P3.5 million a year and relies on commissioners to check compliance, resulting in limited visits to local governments.
• Despite 92% of local governments submitting their solid waste management plans, challenges in implementation have led to overflowing waste in sanitary landfills, which should only contain residual waste.

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MANILA, Philippines – A lack of budget and staff in the National Solid Waste Management Commission has contributed to the body’s failure to monitor local governments’ compliance with solid waste management plans, according to an environment official.

The National Solid Waste Management Commission is under the Office of the President and is comprised of representatives from the Cabinet and local governments.

“The budget of the National Solid Waste Management Commission is zero,” Environment Undersecretary Ignatius Loyola Rodriguez said on Wednesday, August 26, during the House hearing on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) proposed 2027 budget.

“It has no budget.”

Rodriguez said the body only gets funds from the DENR’s Environment Management Bureau — around P3.5 million a year.

The commission also doesn’t have its own staff to go around and check compliance, Rodriguez said. Under Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the commission is supposed to check compliance with approved solid waste management plans across the country.

“But since the commission doesn’t have its own staff, the commissioners themselves go around, and they only get to visit — if I’m not mistaken — 12 to 20 [local governments] every year. So, I think that’s also one of the reasons.”

DENR chief Juan Miguel Cuna said pursuing the enforcement of the law has been talked about within the commission.

About 92% of 1,592 local governments have submitted their solid waste management plans, according to the DENR.

“But the challenge is the implementation of these plans that have been submitted,” said Cuna.

Environmental advocates have long criticized the implementation of the country’s solid waste management law — a legislation experts and advocates have deemed comprehensive enough. The law prioritizes reuse, recycling, and reduction of waste, as well as composting and segregation at source and during collection. It considers sanitary landfills the “final disposal site” for solid and residual waste.

Failures in implementing the law have contributed to overflowing waste in sanitary landfills.

Michael Drake Matias, director of the Environment Management Bureau, emphasized that sanitary landfills should only contain residual waste.

“If we will notice, our sanitary landfills have mixed waste,” said Matias. “That’s why they fill up faster, and we have problems later on.”

The DENR is seeking a P29.5-billion budget for 2027, marginally higher than its P28.3 billion budget in 2026. – Rappler.com