Susan’s Notes
By Susan Palmes-Dennis
ROCKINGHAM, North Carolina—Two words to describe the serious garbage collection problem in Cagayan de Oro City that has dragged on since after the 2025 elections: Lousy housekeeping.
That’s my blunt assessment of the garbage problem facing the City of Golden Friendship which many local netizens now derisively label as the ‘City of Golden Basura (garbage).’ And while I’m far from the odorous excrement that is emitted daily by the uncollected garbage in the city’s streets, my children, relatives and friends who live in the city are not.
And so while I’m kept busy nursing my hubby Dennis back to health, my social media feed had been filled with the rants and vitriol of Kagay-anons who had more than enough of the rot and filth that City Hall and its contracted garbage collector had failed to remove and deliver straight to the city landfill which is said to be nearing full capacity.
One would think that after securing a second full three year term that Mayor Rolando ‘Klarex’ Uy would focus his administration’s energies and resources i in further improving basic essential services in Cagayan de Oro City of which efficient garbage collection ranks high among the priorities of every household in the city, especially those comprising his bailiwick in Barangay Carmen.
Instead, the Klarex administration looked to have underestimated the severity of the city’s garbage crisis by dismissing it outright as the handiwork of bitter political rivals whom they handily defeated in this year’s elections. But the frequency and authenticity of photos showing the mounds of uncollected garbage festering in the city streets is impossible to ignore.
Thus when Mayor Uy announced that he would personally supervise the collection and disposal of all garbage that were abandoned in the city streets and gave himself and other agencies a two-week deadline to do so, he was greeted with cheers and jeers by city residents. I leave it to you to determine whether the jeers are louder than the cheers.
Personally I think that it was totally unnecessary for Mayor Klarex to take the lead in the garbage collection campaign since his underlings should do the job for the city and do it efficiently. If they did their jobs as well as they should be, then we wouldn’t have to witness a department manager being replaced by his subordinate despite having supposedly a good track record as claimed by his supporters.
And wouldn’t you know it, the two-week ultimatum that was imposed on the city’s newly contracted garbage collector also comes days ahead of the holidays when thousands of city residents troop to the city’s funeral homes for the All Saints Day and All Souls Day observance that also brings with it the mounds of garbage thrown indiscriminately by indifferent Kagay-anons.
In fact, the spectacle of Mayor Klarex personally taking over the garbage collection smacks of poor leadership on his part. Much has been said about the way he handled his subalterns and his micro management style which focuses on the smallest details while ignoring the big picture which he leaves to his department managers, a number of whom are shown to be incompetent and—dare I say it—undeserving of their appointment.
To be fair, Cagayan de Oro City is not the only highly urbanized city (HUC) in the country which has their own garbage problem. Cebu City has long grappled with their own garbage problem and had encountered their own share of garbage collectors who failed to fulfill their contractual obligations while serving the Queen City of the South with large unpaid overdue bills for their services.
But such comparisons are ignored and even dismissed by Kagay-anons who are inconvenienced by the stinking eyesore that is the uncollected mounds of garbage that fester outside their homes and are feasted on by stray animals. And to think that Cagayan de Oro City especially the incumbent administration prides itself as a highly urbanized city.
I don’t even want to go deep into the details of the show cause order issued by the Environmental Management Board (EMB) to the city concerning City Hall’s mismanagement of the landfill. Yeah there was supposed to be a contractor assigned to handle the landfill but the landfill’s dismal conditions and the contractor’s incompetence speaks volumes about the city’s garbage crisis.
And so Kagay-anons would have to grit their teeth and stretch their patience to their breaking points as they wait on City Hall and the mayor deliver on their promise to clean up the city’s streets on or before November 1. By that time, I hope Cagayan de Oro City would have cleaner streets and keep that way well beyond the end of 2025.
But while they shouldn’t hold their collective breaths, Kagay-anons should also do their part and buckle down to work on implementing waste segregation in their own households. Yes, we all expect and demand much from our own government to serve us, but economic progress and sustainability is not a one-way street.
Look no further than First World countries like Japan, whose citizens train their children to clean not only their homes but also their schools. Much has been said about Japanese self-discipline but Pinoys are such a hardheaded, ill-behaved people that only comply when imposed with draconian penalties. We Kagay-anons need not be that kind of people.
Sent from my iPhone
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