Scrabble

This is a board game that challenges one’s competence in the English language, capacity to use meager resources to get the highest scores and ability to see relationships and alternatives.

The recent (re)launching of the Clean and Green Project is Bácolod is like the game of scrabble. It tests the competence of its officials and members in collecting and disposing of garbage, utilizing the meager facilities of the city in this project to maximize collection and disposition, looking at where the resources at hand can have the most returns or impact and looking for other means of waste collection than the present traditional way of cleaning up the city.

For the moment let’s concentrate on garbage; we can tackle the green some other time. Greening and beautifying the city is a necessity because of its tourism plans but the most pressing issue that literally irritates the public nostrils and sensitivities is the sight and smell of uncollected garbage.

There is no denying that the first days of the cleaning project was done well, with the city officials gung ho on the project. The garbage trucks could be seen all day, loaded with the city’s wastes, not segregated at all but make a mockery of those signs “no segregation no collection” which is wonderful in slogan but not funny at all. Those signs only underscore the inability of the barangay officials to enforce this policy.

However, the first complaint I got was dismaying. The complaint said that before the (re)launching of the project the collectors removed their garbage but after all the plaudits, their garbage have not been touched at all, as if the collectors were shifted, like in a scrabble, where the trucks could make the best public impact.

This is the major problem of the garbage collection in the city – lack of facilities. We can notice that the garbage trucks are not only old (one truck had already its rusted right fender dangling) but small. They are therefore inefficient because they are old and have a lesser load in relation to fuel consumption.

Have you seen a new, big garbage truck lately? One explanation we heard for the lack of collection truck is that some of the trucks are under repair while others are no longer serviceable and should have been sold as junks to augment the budget to buy new and bigger trucks.

The city needs new and bigger trucks. A study of this situation will probably reveal that the present trucks were purchase years ago when the volume of our garbage was small. The city is expanding faster than we think and thus its garbage is increasing at a faster rate as well. How many new businesses, restaurants, eateries, and other establishments that create large volumes of garbage have been opened during the last year? And yet we have not seen a new garbage truck but the same old dilapidated ones.

Like in the game of scrabble the player cannot score high without or only with a few letters or letters he cannot use.

One cause of this is the oft-repeated plan of privatizing the garbage collection. Indeed, why should the city buy new trucks when it will turn over this problem to a private company? But that plan has not materialized for too long despite several studies and seminars and meetings on this subject.

I do not doubt the sincerity of Task Force Clean and Green and its long list of members or their competence but the problem remains despite their best efforts because one can do only so much with what one has and I commiserate with them.

The Task Force should be provided with more than moral boosters but with resources. This means a bigger budget and this is where the intent of the city will be best tested. If the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry can provide the police with fuel that is fundamentally and obligatorily the responsibility of the national government, I see no reason why private enterprises cannot be helpful.

Sure they and we pay taxes, garbage fees to be exact, but we also pay taxes, more than the national government deserves since we know the billions are siphoned by corruption. On the other hand, the problem of garbage is our responsibility not the national officials.

I do not say the MBBCI is wrong because the donation is laudable and good public relations, but should we not be more charitable at home first and when the need is crying out for help?

We can punish local officials in the next election, if indeed we are unsatisfied with their performance in this and other matters, but we must also think of our responsibilities. Businessmen and home owners, for instance should consider whether the amount of garbage fee is commensurate with the volume of their wastes and the services they demand.*

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