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BY RESEL JOY TIANERO
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Tuesday, January 24, 2017
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ILOILO City – Cleaning this city after the Dinagyang Festival wrapped up last night proved to be a big challenge.
Although the city government’s contracted garbage collector did its routine garbage collection, the General Services Office (GSO) of the city government had to mobilize its own force, too.
According to Niel Ravena of GSO, the garbage was mainly from kiosks selling food during the two-day festival highlights on Jan. 21 and 22.
“Gatinumpok lang ang basura sa syudad,” he observed, and took to task kiosk operators for being irresponsible.
The operators’ late dismantling of their kiosks also contributed to the slow cleanup, added Ravena.
GSO started cleaning the city at 4 a.m. yesterday. Ravena said 10 trucks were mobilized to haul the garbage to the controlled dumpsite in Barangay Calajunan, Mandurriao district.
By 9 a.m., “90 percent” of the Dinagyang trash were already hauled to the dumpsite, said Ravena who oversees the dumpsite.
Prior to Sunday’s Dinagyang ati-ati tribes competition, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) challenged revelers to make this year’s edition of the premier festival a celebration like no other in the Philippines – garbage-free.
Regional Director Jim Sampulna noted a “trend” in the country’s various festivities – these usually leave the streets full of trash.
What is needed, said Sampulna, is “a well-disciplined mental attitude to manage waste.”
The environmental watch group EcoWaste Coalition asked Santo Niño devotees to be mindful of their trash, too.
Santo Niño devotees, particularly the adults, should rise to the occasion and treat the environment with respect – an indispensable value that the young can learn from the old in this era of climate change, said EcoWaste.
“Keeping our communities spick and span is a shared assignment and not the sole responsibility of street sweepers even though they are paid to do it,” according to Ochie Tolentino, zero waste campaigner of EcoWaste./PN
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