Cleaning up Bacolod

Can we really clean up Bacolod City under the present circumstances? The answer will vary depending on one’s orientation and since this is election time, from where one sits in the political fence. There had been ordinances and committees organized through the decades. I don’t know when there was none since the time of the Americans. We had always the Clean Up Week and we, students brought along brooms and, sometimes dust pans, and scoured the neighborhoods to clean the surroundings.

That was supposed to teach us to implement the slogan, “cleanliness is next to godliness” which we memorized but hardly followed except in our personal lives in which we are very meticulous to the point that we feel “dirty” if we cannot take a bath daily.

We often hear commentators and radio callers complain of the garbage and indeed they have all the reasons to complain because we see trash everywhere, many uncollected for days. But shouting “garbage, garbage everywhere” will not bring us close to a clean city.

In terms of effort, the city government cannot be faulted entirely and yet who are we to blame for this mess?

The Sanggunian last week passed a resolution asking the mayor to realign the money that was intended for the contractor who was to collect our garbage but since the year is about to end without a contractor for this purpose use the money elsewhere is the SP message.

I wonder what is the reason why the bids committee has failed to award the contract. Sure there are processes to follow, but if there is also a sense of haste as garbage waits for no man, the committee could have moved faster than usual.

Surely the city is not bidding out a contract for the construction of the structures similar to the pyramids of Egypt or the Taj Majal.

My concern is that the Task Force on Clean and Green appears helpless in the face of the gargantuan task of cleaning up the city, much less in beautifying it. I imagine them like Sisyphus rolling the rock to the top of the hill only to see it roll down again and have to repeat the process until the gods decide his penalty is done.

Bácolod was once adjudged the cleanest city in the Philippines not that it is entirely clean but because the others are worse. This award has been terminated because indeed the country’s cities are clean once and then unclean the next week.

Critics of the city administration will always find something to crow about but the fact is that no one has ever really cleaned up the city and yet every administration has tried hard to do the best it could.

At the root of the garbage problem is culture, the Filipino culture that we must admit is the most formidable opponent and obstacle in the effort to clean up the city.

We say this is not impossible, however, because other cities in the world are clean. Singapore and Switzerland and New Zealand are examples of clean cities. What is the reason for this?

Cleanliness is not only in the things we do but in the mind, in ourselves. To repeat, it is in our culture not in our beings so we must change the culture by the way culture is developed – by example, repetition and even force

To attain this, the city needs an army of workers because it has already the desire, intent and the determination to clean the city. But where will we get this army?

Waiting for Field Marshal Evelio R. Leonardia is at least five divisions of storm troopers with hundreds of generals and way down the line of lieutenants. But he needs to raise his marshal’s baton and mobilize these troops. -

He has already the marching orders – several national and city ordinances and resolution calling for him, Vice Field Marshal Jude Thaddeus Sayson, his General Staff in the Sanggunian – and others who ought to be called into battle.

This is a metaphor but also a reality. The standing army is there waiting to be mustered in a total war against trash.

The city is willing to spend over P75 million each year for garbage collection, but that is not enough because for garbage to be transported, it must be collected and for collection to be more efficient and cheaper with what we have, we must put a cap on its production. This can only be done with a change of culture about what garbage is – our collective and individual responsibility.

As population grows and the city develops garbage multiplies and thus costlier to collect. We cannot continue to increase the garbage collection budget. We must reduce it to a manageable proportion. The army waits for the generals.*

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