CHARLOTTE, North Carolina—I would like to belatedly greet a happy fiesta to all Kagayanons who ended their commemoration of the annual Higalaay Festival with a bang or two via the two fireworks displays sponsored by Ayala Centrio and SM City Cagayan de Oro Uptown over the weekend Philippine time.
It looked like quite the busy month for a lot of Kagay-anong who entertained guests both domestic and foreign. Let me extend a special fiesta greeting to Papias Tiro Jr. son of the late certified public accountant Papias Tiro who my husband Ronnie and I met at the Starbucks café Limketkai Mall branch and who happens to be a cousin of Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno.
But anyway back to business in Misamis Oriental, northern Mindanao is besieged by complaints of foul odor caused by garbage carelessly dumped by companies including that garbage from South Korea.
The most recent complaint of foul odor that I learned from a Facebook page that focused on Tagoloan town pointed the source as coming from a local company identified as Tamco Processing Plant in Barangay. Mohon, Tagoloan, town.
The residents complained about the fetid smell of burning chicken intestines and chicken feathers. They suffered in silence and a lot of them had to run Vicks Vaporub in their nostrils to offset the stench.
I was born in Mohon and I love it even if my family moved to neighboring barangay Natumolan. As such I knew how it smelled like even before the Phividec Industrial Estate moved in there.
I always visit Mohon or pass by it through the Sta. Ana Cemetery. My visit to Mohon would not be complete without dropping by the house of Nang Nita Naelga Agusan,Tiay Gaga Sabio and Maninay Clara Naelga, oh boy I forgot her last name.
But anyway in all these visits I smell the air of old Mohon, the smell of papayas and other fruits. But Mohon is more populated by coconut trees and I still remember the smell of coconut oil that was converted by the old women into soothing medicinal oil.
All that is a distant memory because of the fetid smell of chicken intestines and feathers. I was made to understand that newly seated Mayor Gomer Enan Sabio inspected the factory after getting wind of the complaint.
I also learned that Tamco is managed by a certain Bryce Co who is supposedly influential to some powers that be in Tagoloan town. At any rate the inaction has to stop.
If the company secured a permit it should comply with basic environmental standards as stipulated by national law and reinforced (I hope) by local ordinances.
The previous administration obviously failed because there won’t be any complaints if the problem was addressed in the first place. The incumbent town council should investigate this and if so warranted, recommend action to the mayor.
The town council may also consider amending or crafting new ordinance requiring more stringent compliance to environmental laws and imposing heavier sanctions against violators.
And also what’s this I heard that the dump trucks confiscated by the incumbent administration for illegal quarrying activities were supposedly released after the town turned them over to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)?
At any rate I hope Tagoloan Mayor Gomer Enan Sabio is up to the task and he resolves this immediately and decisively.
