“IT’S DISHEARTENING”
Emma Gillego, who lives in a stilt shanty overlooking the Paranaque River, has not seen a garbage truck in her neighbourhood since her family moved there 20 years ago.
Plastic litters the ground even though city sanitation workers visit several times a year to teach residents about waste segregation.
“We don’t tell off our neighbours who throw garbage into the water because we don’t want to meddle with their lives,” Gillego, 58, said.
Lawmakers have enacted a series of environmental measures in recent years, covering everything from rolling out recycling centres to compelling companies to take responsibility for their plastic waste.
“The Philippines has made really commendable efforts in pushing all these legislation efforts together,” senior World Bank environmental specialist Junu Shrestha told AFP.
While the legislation gave the Philippines a “road map” in dealing with the waste management problem, implementing it was “another challenge”, Shrestha said.
In Manila, where more than 14 million people live, only 60 per cent of rubbish is collected, sorted and recycled daily, according to a 2022 World Bank report.
Loyzaga told AFP that the country was in the “infancy stage” of waste segregation and recycling, and she did not see an end to the use of single-use plastic.
“It performs a certain function at the moment for a certain income group in our economy,” she said.
While it was unpleasant standing in putrid water for hours on end, river ranger Narvas believed his efforts were helping to reduce flooding in areas along the waterway.
He just wished the community would stop throwing their rubbish in the water.
“It’s disheartening,” Narvas said.
“But this is our job and we’re used to that. We just keep on going.”
