Tough roads to Consolacion give garbage truck drivers a headache

Thursday, October 6, 2011 NARROW, unpaved and unlighted roads. These are among the problems facing Cebu City garbage truck drivers in using the road in Barangay Pitos that leads to the town of Consolacion. The 10 garbage trucks that the Citys Department of Public Service (DPS) fielded for a dry run in delivering the Citys garbage to Consolacion yesterday had a difficult time going to the private dumping facility in Consolacion due to narrow and unpaved roads. The absence of street lights compounds the problem. In an interview yesterday, Mayor Michael Rama admitted that the roads going to Barangay Polog in Consolacion need to be fixed. Ang dan, dapat gyud areglahon (The road must be fixed), he said. Asked if the City will shoulder the paving of roads, particularly in Barangay Cabangahan of Consolacion, Rama said he will still have to look into the matter. There are matters that will have to be answered by the owner of the landfill, but there are also matters that will have to be answered by the City, he said. The mayor refused to elaborate. In yesterdays dry run, the garbage trucks of the City took the route from Banilad going to Talamban, then Pit-os, to Cabangahan in Consolacion, then to Polog. Barangay Polog, which is about four kilometers from Barangay Pit-os, is where Consolacions sanitary landfill, recovery, and power generation facility is located. The facility is operated by the Asian Energy Systems Corp. The City is testing the road in Pit-os in going to Consolacion after the Mandaue City Governments recent pronouncement that it will block Cebu Citys garbage trucks from using its main highway. The City is scheduled to release the result of their assessment of yesterdays dry run today. Meanwhile, the estimated 600 scavengers at the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill are asking City Hall not to dump the entire citys garbage in Consolacion town. This way, the scavengers will still be able to eke out a living at the landfill and would not be deprived of whatever income they make. Yesterday, the scavengers met with Mayor Rama to air their sentiments on the impending closure of the landfill.

The death toll from the earthquake that struck the central Philippines reached 161 on Thursday, as authorities scrambled to get food and medicine to isolated victims and began to look at how to repair collapsed roads, bridges and centuries-old churches. Relief workers finally reached many of the isolated communities in Bohol province, the epicenter of Tuesday's magnitude-7.2 earthquake. Most of the deadat least 149were in Bohol, as were the 22 people still missing, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council reported late Thursday. Many roads and bridges were impassable in Bohol, impeding efforts to get food and medicine to those in need. Meanwhile, the Philippines Air Force said its flights to Bohol to take in relief materials were slowed down because of damaged runway lights in Tagbilaran City airport, preventing night operations. Some residents in Bohol were camping out in open spaces, refusing to return to their homes out of fear of aftershocks, none severe, that have followed the earthquake. More than 3.4 million people were affected by the earthquake in the three central provinces of Bohol, Cebu and Siquijor, with some towns reporting having no electricity. Overall damage to roads, bridges and flood control was initially estimated at 75.2 million pesos ($1.7 million). But the governor of Bohol, Edgar Chatto, said in a radio interview Thursday that his province alone will need much more than thatPHP700 million ($16.2 million)to repair damaged roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

In Cebu City, the city's disaster office estimates damage to property to be at least PHP300 million ($7 million). The city will also have to build a new public hospital after Cebu City Medical Center was declared unsafe because of the structural damage it sustained. The Philippine Institute on Volcanology and Seismology on Thursday recorded a 5.5-magnitude earthquake in Tagbilaran City, the capital of Bohol, the strongest aftershock since Tuesday's strong temblor. The towns of Loon and Maribojocwhere historic churches were severely damagedcould only be reached by sea or helicopter. Loon's limestone Our Lady of Light Church was reduced to mounds of crushed rocks.