Garbage scandal simmers in the Philippines elections

An environmental group said that presidential bets Grace Poe, Mar Roxas, and Miriam Defensor Santiago, if elected, will take specific measures to solve the long-drawn-out Canadian garbage scandal and prevent it from recurring.
Asked by the EcoWaste Coalition what they would do about Canada’s illegal waste shipment in the first 100 days in office, Senator Santiago said, “I will invoke the Basel Convention to force Canada to take back the trash it dumped on Philippine soil. ” The Basel Convention, which the Philippines ratified in 1993, seeks to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects of hazardous wastes, particularly the trans-boundary movements of such wastes between nations.
Santiago, who filed two resolutions at the Senate pertaining to the Canadian garbage dumping, emphasized “we must not process the waste in the Philippines, as it sets a dangerous precedent.”
“If we allow one country to turn the Philippines into a garbage dump, we are telling all other countries that they can do the same,” she pointed out.
Liberal Party bet Mar Roxas said he will ask the Canadian government to ship back their garbage “at the soonest time possible.”
“While these were imported by a private company, they would not have reached the Philippines without clearance from concerned Canadian authorities. The Canadian government must be asked to assume equal responsibility to remove these waste materials from the Philippines at the soonest time possible,” he said.
“We will task the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to send an official letter to Canada demanding them to take back all these containers which were imported in violation of Philippine laws and the Basel Convention,” he added.
For her part, Senator Poe said her administration will “facilitate bilateral talks with the Canadian government to repatriate the wastes back to Canada.” She will “take immediate steps to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment to ensure clean production and no hazardous wastes are shipped from developed countries to developing countries for any reason.”
The Basel Ban Amendment is a revision to the Basel Convention that seeks to prohibit exports of hazardous wastes from developed to developing countries for final disposal, reuse, recycling and recovery.
Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte failed to reply to the question sent by the Quezon City based toxic watchdog group even if he had strongly spoken against the illegal entry of Canadian trash. He had suggested to Aquino to file a diplomatic protest against Canada over the garbage shipments.
Like Duterte, Vice-President Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance did not respond to nine-point questionnaire on wastes and toxics that the EcoWaste Coalition sent to the five presidential bets.
The 50 shipping containers full of Vancouver garbage continue to rot in Philippine ports, officials in the Asian nation remain adamant that Canada should “take back its waste.
The trash, which is all sourced from the Vancouver area, was shipped to Manila in early 2013 by Ontario’s Chronic Inc.
Although the containers were labelled “scrap plastic materials for recycling,” inspectors with the Philippine Bureau of Customs instead reported finding the containers stuffed with rotting household waste and soggy paper.
The discovery incensed Philippine politicians and environmental groups, who accused Canada of pawning off its garbage on poorer countries.