BACOLOD City — A newly formed civic coalition has intensified its opposition to a proposed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that would allow Victorias City temporary access to Bacolod City’s sanitary landfill in Barangay Felisa, citing environmental, financial, and public health concerns.
In separate statements issued on July 5 and 6, Alyansa Kontra Basura (AKB) urged the Bacolod City Government and the Sangguniang Panlungsod to reject the proposal, which is currently under deliberation before the city council.
The proposed agreement seeks to grant Victorias City temporary use of Bacolod’s sanitary landfill while the neighboring city addresses the lack of its own waste disposal facility.
AKB lead convenor and labor advocate Wennie Sancho said the proposal would be detrimental to Bacolod residents, particularly those living in Barangays Felisa, Handumanan, and nearby communities.
The group claimed that Bacolod’s sanitary landfill already receives an estimated 1,700 to 2,500 cubic meters of waste daily and argued that accepting additional waste from Victorias City would shorten the facility’s operational lifespan while increasing costs shouldered by Bacolod taxpayers.
AKB also questioned the absence of public consultations with residents of communities expected to be directly affected by the proposed arrangement and called on the city government to disclose any environmental impact assessment related to the plan.
In a follow-up statement titled “The Smokey Mountain Blues,” Sancho said the proposed agreement would effectively bring another city’s waste into Bacolod. While acknowledging that the proposal is anchored on the inter-local cooperation provisions of Republic Act No. 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, the coalition expressed concern that the arrangement, although described as temporary, could eventually become permanent.
The group maintained that Bacolod should prioritize addressing its own solid waste management challenges and instead urged Victorias City to establish its own sanitary landfill rather than rely on Bacolod’s existing facility.
AKB appealed to city legislators to reject the proposed MOA, saying the decision would determine whether Bacolod preserves its waste management capacity or assumes a greater role in accommodating waste from neighboring local government units.
As of Monday, Bacolod City officials had yet to issue a formal response to the coalition’s statements, while deliberations on the proposed memorandum remain ongoing before the Sangguniang Panlungsod./PN
