BAGUIO CITY – From the fertile agricultural lands in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) to the back alleys of Baguio City, one seldom travels far without some reminder that the wastes of the affluent have value to the poor.
One tourist, by the name of Gilmore Zabante, 49, from Manila exclaimed to Daily Laborer, upon visiting Baguio, that the city, as compared to other areas, is still “akin to a paradise.”
The Daily Laborer smiled wryly and answered, “Unfortunately, all is not well in this paradise.”
“Why do you say all is not well in paradise, Hmmm?” Zabante asked the Daily Laborer.
Daily Laborer answered: “For hidden in this paradise are groups of people who scrape together a living through informal waste picking or buying litter odds and ends like scrap metal, iron, aluminum, glass bottles, plastic bottles worn out galvanized sheets, electric copper wires, cardboard boxes, tin cans, old newspapers, rubber mats, etc., from household owners.”
“Many them, men, women, elderly, unemployed, migrants from other areas in the country pick up waste under unhealthy conditions with no social protection and often face social exclusion,” Daily laborer added.
A Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) recently conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority – Cordillera Administrative Region (PSA-CAR) reveals 6.9 per cent of the population fall under the category “poor,” and translated to 30, 740 families.
They live below the poverty threshold and don’t have family income. Family income refers to primary income like salaries and wages and receipts from other sources derived from entrepreneur – business activities.
Poverty threshold refers to a minimum income required for a family or individual to purchase basic food and non- food basic needs (like clothing, housing, rent, transportation, health and education).
For a family of 4-5 persons, it means it needs about Php11, 973,00 per month on the average, to meet their basic food and non- food basic needs.
Nearly 10 out of 100 Cordillerans are considered poor, or, by PSA-CAR’s estimates in 2021, 8,500 poor individuals were from Apayao; 17, 100 poor individuals from Ifugao; 18,500 poor individuals from Kalinga; 35,000 poor individuals and 35,000 from Mountain Province.
While subsistence among these families in CAR fell from 2.2 per cent in 2018 to 1.4 per cent in 2021, it translated to less than 3,250 food poor families or families living below the food threshold of about Php19,000. Two, out of 100 individuals in CAR are food poor.
Province-wise, it was estimated by PSA that there were 33 in every 100 food poor individuals in CAR were in the province of Abra; nearly 22 in every food poor individuals listed in Benguet; 21 in 100 food poor individuals were from Mountain Province; 10 in every 100 food poor individuals were from Kalinga; 8 in every 100 food poor families came from Ifugao; 4 in every 100 food poor families were from Apayao and 2 from 100 food poor individuals from Baguio City.
Every night or early morning in Baguio’s market places, one can spot unidentified persons silently scrounging around the still unopened market stalls, sidewalks or trash dumps for scraps like cardboard boxes, bottles and others to sell later to the junk shops.
Every morning in the city’s 128 barangays, you will find men lugging bamboo baskets tied to a pole and shouting, “BOTEEEE!!! BOTEEEE YU DITA!” These are nameless souls living with our trash, yet one does not really see them.
These waste pickers are invisible to most of Baguio’s city dwellers who go about their daily lives without giving them a passing glance. Many people may not realize that they exist.
Take Severino Miguel, 59, from Pangasinan who migrated to Baguio in the 60’s in search for better pasture fields. Miguel describes himself as a “full-time waste picker.”
As he smashed last week a discarded and old 35-inch television to bits to salvage its valuable components, by extracting its copper wires and plastic frames, it brought to mind how waste pickers provide a valuable yet thankless service to drive Baguio’s local recycling service, especially for this city which has always struggled with its waste management system.
It also brought to the fore the fact that instead of some elected city officials trying to ram into the throats of city residents and choking them of their plan to collect Php 250.00 in their poorly conceived traffic scheme for tourists and residents alike, they should instead zero seriously on more pressing problems like adopting a multi-dimensional approach in expanding opportunities for the city’s urban poor.
Instead of withholding crucial information like specific road network to be affected by the traffic congestion fee, hindering meaningful public participation and the same officials trying to daydream by comparing Baguio to Singapore in governance, they should instead do more work by providing infrastructure on affordable housing, jobs and social protection, residents opposing the traffic plan chimed to Daily Laborer.
Instead of making the blood pressures of residents shoot up to boiling point by passing to residents the traffic problem in Baguio at the expense of residents/ visitors, these same elected officials should instead collaborate with local key stakeholders to find a sustainable and ingenious solution to the city’s traffic issues.
Instead of offering lame explanations raised against the traffic scheme, these same officials should mind the fact that there stands a massive opposition by residents in implementation of the plan, as gleaned by negative reactions posted on Facebook.
Instead of giving residents “peace of mind” which they richly deserve as tax payers in the city, these same officials trying to sell the traffic scheme should instead be mindful that as officials, they should practice, at the least, not showing dissatisfaction or discontent to the very people who voted for them into office.
Instead of fantasizing that their traffic scheme is the best they will offer to residents, they should sober up and think twice for the massive opposition to it will not fade away just as easily.
Unlike the waste pickers, many after having filled their sacks with scrap, fade away unnoticed to sell their prized collections.
It’s not just the obvious – a worn-out footwear fashioned from old car tires, plastic bottles; vegetable peeling culled from La Trinidad’s vegetable trading posts and sold as pig feed; glass bottles cut and sanded into cups; tin cans cut and fashioned into toys and household implements; rags collected and sold to paper manufacturers; pig, horse and cow droppings collected and sold as fertilizer.
To the waste picker, almost anything can have a second economic life or use to those ingenious enough to recognize an application.
It is this ingenuity, the informal collection of wastes, which helps keep many neighborhoods from stifling their own wastes and which has come to provide a living for many persons.
Said Toto Padernal, 49, from the lowlands and presently staying temporarily with relatives at Happy Holmes Barangay: “I would rather be a waste picker to earn some money, than engage in criminal activities.”
Besides generating jobs for the workless, waste picking is a sensible waste management that helps protect the environment; provides raw material for the manufacture of such items like water pipes, beverage containers, plastic buckets, lamps, stoves, sandals, slippers, other things; render barangays congenial to live in and even provides energy from biogas.
It is dirty and messy work for the urban poor, many of whom literally live on top of garbage dumps by knowing exactly where barangays have their designated drop off points for their trash to be collected by garbage collectors of the city’s General Services Division.
And they are susceptible to various diseases. To residents who spoke to Daily Laborer, their services are valued and further added in supporting the informal collection, rather than discourage it.
Barangays in Baguio and other outlying areas have set up their own integrated resource recovery schemes to demonstrate ways of improving waste management through a better barangay capacity, and better recognition of the value inherent in waste.
There have been studies already conducted and in use focused on such things such as production of biogas from organic waste of pigs. Many in the provinces in CAR are already using this kind of application.
In CAR provinces, they implement a simple process by which pig and other animal manure is deposited in a constructed pits and tightly sealed. The wastes are then reduced through aerobic digestion and in the process, give off gas which are piped to households and used as cooking fuel.
Since almost all households in CAR — with the exception of Baguio City — engage in backyard raising of pigs, many of the provincial residents have adopted this technique and explained it has removed the problem of where to dump pig manure once it was removed from pig pens.
Before, they used to dump these in open spaces but these emit foul odor and are repugnant to many sensitive residents who complain to their barangays. Due to this technique, many provincial residents have been able to add more piglets to raise at their backyards and earn more once the animals are matured for butchering.
In places in CAR and in Baguio City, government garbage collectors explain that too often, wastes are often disposed of in unregulated dumps or burned. But with a high percentage of garbage being moist matter, it is difficult to burn and emits noxious smoke. And burning of wastes is illegal.
Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) authorities in CAR explain such burning of wastes creates serious health, safety and environmental consequences. On the other hand, Department of Health (DOH) authorities said poorly managed waste serves as breeding ground for disease vectors.
On the other hand, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR-CAR) added poor waste management contributes to global climate change through methane generation and can even foster urban violence.
Managing waste properly is essential for building a sustainable and livable environment in CAR and remains a constant challenge for authorities.
Operating this essential service requires integrated systems that are efficient, sustainable and socially supported like what is presently advocated by the government of sorting out household wastes into categories as biodegradable, recyclable, residual and special waste.
Waste pickers are doing their part. Seriously now, are you doing your part in waste segregation?