Garbage: The difference between P-Noy and Erap

What kind of government has ours become to allow the garbage of a foreign land to be dumped on our shores?

It appears that the very much nationally abhorred Canadian trash awaiting final disposition at a Customs warehouse is not the first of its kind to land in our midst and times. Japan also exported garbage to the Philippines sometime in 1999.

What is the difference? Well, in 1999 the government lost no time to have Japan’s garbage shipped back to Japan at no cost to us. And Japan didn’t send us its garbage again. Today, the government appears to have not even filed a serious formal protest to Canada on the latter’s clear violation of the related international laws. It’s as if we are amenable to Canada’s appeal and recommendation to have the trash retained and treated in the Philippines, with all costs chargeable to it and/or to the importer-exporter. As a matter of fact, a number of tons thereof have already been sent and dumped into the sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac, notwithstanding the objection of the concerned local government units. One wonders how far the objections could lead.

But still the curious question keeps coming back: “What’s the difference?” Ah, the one happened in Erap’s time, the other under Mr. Aquino’s watch. Put more bluntly, Erap is less subservient than Mr. Aquino is to foreign wishes!

To some extent, meanwhile, sanitizing the Canadian garbage locally, if feasible—albeit surely creating a dangerous precedent—might probably be an easier and more practical alternative under the present circumstances than shipping it back to origin. But then, at the very least, could not this government perhaps be a little bit more courageous and emphatic by warning Canada and all other countries that the next time around they better send their garbage to where definitely no one will ever object: outer space?

—RUDY L CORONEL, [email protected]