Mayors in Negros Oriental said they are willing to go to prison for failure to establish sanitary landfills in their localities, Bindoy Mayor Valentin Yap, president of the League of Municipalities in the province, said.

Yap issued the statement as the deadline issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for the mayors to set up the sanitary landfills nears.

Yap said the DENR gave them until Wednesday to establish the landfills. "We, the mayors of Oriental Negros will have difficulty in putting up the sanitary landfill because it is very expensive," Yap said.

Yap added that the facility costs millions of pesos, and there's no way for the towns in the province to put up one, especially since most of them are categorized third to fourth class municipalities.

What the mayors can do, he said, is to improve the disposal of garbage.

When reminded by the DENR directive saying that they may face charges for failure to comply with the order, Yap said that, "The mayors are willing to go to prison."

In mid-December last year, the DENR regional office in Central Visayas wrote to 21 city and municipal mayors in Oriental Negros directing them to establish sanitary landfill as mandated by Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.

The LGUs directed to comply with the law were the municipalities of Basay, Sta. Catalina, Siaton, Zamboanguita, Dauin, Bacong Valencia, Sibulan, Amlan, Pamplona, Mabinay, Manjuyod, Bindoy, Ayungon, Tayasan, Jimalalud, la Libertad, Guihulngan and Vallehermoso and the cities of Dumaguete and Tanjay.

Mario Aragon, environmental management specialist of DENR in Region 7, said that, in the province, only the cities of Bais, Canlaon and Bayawan and the town of San Jose have complied, or are now complying with RA 9003.

The law, which took effect in 2001, mandates that within three years following its effectivity, all local government units in the country must convert their open dumpsite into a controlled one, and then establish a sanitary landfill on or before January 26, 2006.

RA 9003 also provides that mayors who fail to comply will face administrative charges.

Aragon said open dumpsite means the disposal of garbage is not controlled, while, a controlled dumpsite is one which the garbage is being covered immediately after being dumped.

A sanitary landfill, he said, is one which is highly developed, employing facilities and equipment that effectively disposes the garbage, such as separating the solid from liquid wastes and treating them in such a way that it will not adversely affect the environment.*

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