NEARLY 10 metric tons of garbage pulled from the Jaro River in just two weeks should embarrass us.
Not because Iloilo City lacks people willing to clean its waterways. Quite the opposite. Government personnel repeatedly descend on rivers, creeks and drainage channels to remove what people throw away. The embarrassing part is that government must keep cleaning the same waterways because some residents apparently continue treating them as convenient garbage bins.
This is why the observation of General Services Office head Engr. Niel Ravena deserves serious attention: clean-up drives are merely a “palliative solution” unless people change their behavior.
The evidence is already emerging along the Batiano River. In the 18 barangays covered by the city’s behavioral change study, garbage recovery in the Batiano area has dropped from as much as 760 kilograms daily to around 300 to 400 kilograms. That is not yet victory, but it is compelling evidence that changing people’s habits may accomplish what an endless succession of clean-up drives cannot.
The lesson is simple: you cannot clean faster than people can litter.
Government can deploy trucks. It can mobilize workers. But if residents throw another sack of garbage into the water after government workers leave, the entire exercise becomes an expensive cycle of cleaning, dumping and cleaning again.
Dungon Creek offers a particularly disturbing example. Around 980 kilograms of garbage, mostly plastics, were recovered there. Worse, some waste was found inside sacks — suggesting, according to Ravena, that garbage already gathered from households or barangays was subsequently dumped into the waterway. If so, that is not simply carelessness. That is a deliberate transfer of responsibility: somebody bundles the garbage and then makes the river deal with it.
And rivers eventually return what we give them. Plastic blocks waterways and drainage systems. Clogged waterways aggravate flooding. Floodwaters enter homes and businesses, damage property, disrupt traffic and expose communities to filthy water. Government then spends public money clearing drainage channels, dredging waterways and implementing flood-control projects.
Thus, throwing garbage into a creek is not merely an ugly habit. It imposes costs on everybody else The problem becomes more complicated among communities along waterways. Around 3,000 informal settler households are estimated to be situated along the Jaro and Batiano rivers, where garbage trucks often cannot reach homes because access is through footbridges or distant collection points. That reality cannot be ignored.
Government cannot demand responsible disposal without ensuring that residents have a practical way to dispose of their garbage. Behavioral change must therefore be matched by accessible collection systems, strategically located material recovery or collection points, sustained information campaigns and active barangay supervision.
But difficult access cannot become a permanent excuse for turning rivers into dumpsites. Barangays must assume greater responsibility. They are the level of government closest to households. They know where illegal dumping occurs, which waterways repeatedly become clogged and where collection systems are inadequate.
Most importantly, the behavioral-change initiative should not remain confined to only 18 of Iloilo City’s 180 barangays if evidence continues to show that it works. Expand it. Target communities along rivers, creeks and drainage systems first. Measure how much garbage is collected before and after intervention. Publish the results. Recognize barangays that sustain clean waterways and hold accountable those that repeatedly allow illegal dumping.
Iloilo City has invested heavily in flood mitigation and environmental improvement. But no engineering solution, however expensive, can fully succeed when waterways are repeatedly stuffed with plastics and household garbage.
Flood prevention does not begin only with pumping stations, drainage systems, dredging or multimillion-peso infrastructure. Sometimes it begins with something much simpler. And the Batiano experience offers Iloilo City an encouraging message: habits can change, and when they do, the amount of garbage reaching waterways can fall dramatically.
