The Philippine Online Chronicles

The Baguio government is to end the use of the dump in Barangay Irisan after the Supreme Court released a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) dated 17 January.

“You … are hereby ordered, effective immediately, and until further orders from this court, to cease and desist from making use of the Irisan dumpsite either as a temporary holding/staging area or as a dumping or controlled area for any and all kinds of solid waste,” said the ruling.

The dump was decommissioned in 2008 after residents barricaded the site to prevent more garbage being sent to it. Continued use of the 30-year-old landfill was blamed for the garbage spill during Typhoon Mina in September 2011, which killed six people. Benguet Representative Ronald Cosalan, National Artist for Visual Arts Benedicto Cabrera and 13 others filed a petition for a TEPO to prevent the city government from using the landfill.

City officials fear that the TEPO could trigger a garbage crisis, as the ruling forbids even the interim use of the dump, for sorting the garbage collected over the day.

The SC further ordered Baguio Mayor Mauricio Domogan and other city officials to file comments within a non-extendible 10 days.

Earlier this month, the expansion of SM Baguio, which will involve cutting or displacing nearly 200 trees, was protested en masse by Baguio citizens.