RETURN TO SENDER Protesters tell Canada to take back tons of garbage illegally shipped to a port in Manila from Canada two years ago. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
MANILA, Philippines–Saying “the legal process [was] continuing,” Malacañang on Tuesday indicated that President Aquino will not be taking up with Ottawa officials the “garbage issue” during his May 6 to 9 state visit to Canada.
Fifty containers of mostly household trash, including soiled adult diapers, were illegally shipped from Canada to Manila two years ago, with Canada refusing to take the garbage back, saying it was “a private commercial matter” between a Canadian export company and a Philippine import firm.
Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. on Tuesday said the Philippine government was “exhausting all legal remedies to address [the] issue.”
Quoting Foreign Affairs spokesperson Charles Jose, Coloma said there was an ongoing “interagency coordination on the issue, led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).”
Coloma added: “I can only surmise it is still at the technical working group level as it is being threshed out by various concerned agencies.”
During his three-day state visit, President Aquino was scheduled to discuss with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper trade and development aid, the protection of Filipino migrant workers in Canada, as well as regional concerns, including the growing tensions in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
Environmental and labor groups have asked Aquino to tell Canada to take back the containers full of trash illegally shipped to Manila in 2013, but Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said the government had dropped this demand “for the sake of our diplomatic relations.”
The DENR had initially asked the Canadian government to take back the trash, citing the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes.
Manila and Ottawa are among the 180 signatories to the treaty that seeks to prevent developed nations from dumping trash in developing countries.
In an earlier interview, Paje said the government was waiting for clearance from the Manila Regional Trial Court after state prosecutors asked that the trash be disposed of in local landfills while the case continued.
The DENR head said the Bureau of Customs (BOC) would dispose of the trash and that the cost would be charged to the importer, Chronic Plastics.
The 50 containers of trash, passed off as scrap materials for recycling, arrived in the country in six batches from June to August 2013, according to the BOC.
Since June 2013, the garbage shipment has been rotting at the ports in Manila and Subic, Zambales province, pending a decision in a case brought against the local counterpart of the Ontario-based exporter Chronic Inc., as well as negotiations between the Philippines and Canada.
The Canadian Embassy in Makati City has been on the receiving end of mass actions and public petitions from environment groups to get the trash back, but Canada’s diplomatic mission brushed aside their calls, saying the issue was a private matter between the importer and exporter.
Chronic Inc.’s owner, Jim Makris, had denied in an interview with The Toronto Star a year ago that the shipment was household trash, saying it was recyclable plastic. He also suggested he was being punished for failing to pay off Filipino officials when his containers arrived.