HEAR AN IBAANIAN YOUTH

[Jhoye Miral]

Lack of proper garbage disposal adds to the country’s leading problems. Aside from the fact that the open dump sides here in the Philippines have unpleasant sights, it is also very unhealthy for a lot of insects and animal pests live on it which will eventually cause variety of diseases.
And now, the province of Batangas is going through this problem. Its open dump sides no longer have the capacity to hold garbage anymore. Because of this, the Batangas Environmental Services, Inc. with the joined effort of the Waste System New Zealand Limited come up with a solution and that is having a provincial sanitary landfill.
Ibaan, one of the town in Batangas was the proposed place for the said project. But we- the people of Ibaan are not in favor of it for we knew that the project hasn’t been tried to any place in the country yet. There is no way we will let our place as a testing ground. Let’s say in the first five years, it will be properly monitored and supervised. But if ever something wrong happened, you could no longer do anything about it, right? Can you still purify the contaminated water, the polluted air and change the acidic soil?
Why won’t you try the project into somewhere else wherein there is no possibility that fathers might loss their jobs; mothers may no longer serve clean water and foods for the family; and children may no longer enjoy the place they are living in?
Ibaanians are definitely in favor of having a healthy place to live in and if the only way of having such is to have a sanitary landfill, then we’ll support you althrough. But risking our place for such fulfillment is very inhumane; after all we have the right like yours to feel free, secured and healthy in the place where we’re living in.

Note: This was featured in Ibalitaan (Ibaan newsletter) back in 2000.