BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan announced that the Cordillera Office of the Environmental Bureau (EMB-CAR) has chosen the Bued River as the city’s entry to the cleanest body of water competition that was launched by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu to empower stakeholders nationwide to help in facilitating the clean-up of major water systems in their places that will help in improving the state of the country’s environment.
The Local Chief Executive made the revelation after newly-installed EMB-CAR Regional Director Maria Victoria Abrera paid a courtesy call to him and informed him on the matter which will surely require the greater participation of people living along the river system in ensuring its compliance to water quality standards that have been crafted by the agency.
“We have to sustain or event improve our existing initiatives to clean our major river systems from pollutants that have a great impact on the quality of quarter being gathered from the said systems. Government cannot do the initiative alone that is why there is a need for individual and collective efforts, especially among people living along the Bued River to change their ways to help in the successful implementation of cleaning the said river system,” Domogan stressed.
He explained that aside from residents not directly dumping their water water to the river system, it is also important for piggery owners to comply with the directive of the EMB-CAR and the piggery task force for them to put up their own septic tanks that will prevent the waste water from piggeries from being directly discharged to the river and other tributaries.
According to him, it is clear that piggeries are not allowed in highly urbanized cities as mandated by national laws that is why no local ordinance could be enacted to legalize the existence of piggeries in residential areas, thus, what is important for those residents who have backyard piggeries to consult the EMB-CAR on the matter so that they could at least dispose their pigs and still earn a decent income.
Earlier, the City Mayor created an inter-agency task force that was empowered to implement the stringent rules and regulations that was crafted purposely to slowly remove the presence of backyard piggeries in the different parts of the city considering that most of the said piggeries were found to directly dump their waste water to the different river systems and their tributaries that have resulted to the very high pollutants present in the water of the Balili and Bued Rivers which is in violation of existing environmental laws, rules and regulations.
Piggery owners were given reasonable time to dispose their pigs and that they will no longer be allowed to do so, especially when their residence is ear bodies of water while those who are distant from existing bodies of water are required to put up their septic tanks and that they will have a chance to dispose their pigs in due time provided that they will not discharge their water water to the different bodies of water in their neighbourhood.
Domogan claimed that it is unfortunate that the issue is being used for political purposes by his rivals, saying that people should understand that he is just implementing marching orders that were handed to the local government by the EMB-CAR stating among others that the presence of piggeries in highly urbanized cities is actually prohibited although there is a leeway that had been agreed upon for the purpose of disposing the existing pigs in the care of backyard raisers. By Dexter A. See
