By Mortz C. Ortigoza
My early disappointment with the Waste to Work Project of the Sure Global of the Philippines, Inc. since its introduction in Dagupan City by its Chief Executive Officer Julia Courts Boughton to then mayor Belen T. Fernandez in 2014, I thought it was all lip service.
In the last one year of her administration, I did not hear from either Fernandez or Boughton how the project fared.
I was passionate writing and broadcasting glowing encomium and peroration about its advantages like conversion of plastic wastes into diesel and food wastes into compressed gas to solve our perennial gargantuan garbage problem.
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| Dagupan City prepares rollout of $15 million waste-to-energy plant first of its kind in Southeast Asia. Photo and Texts Credit: Philippine Star |
In the last year of Mayor Fernandez, every time I mentioned about it I was rebuffed, over cup of coffee by fellow media men, who were pro Lim, that the Michigan, USA based proponent had that hao-shiao or farce project.
They told me the program was only drawing on the board exploited by the May 2019 reelectionist Mayor Fernandez for brownie points to win votes in a tough election she faced with the popular then Vice Mayor Brian Lim.
How could I argue with them since its inception in 2014 through that Memorandum of Agreement and the eventual resolution cum proposed contract passed by the Sangguniang Panglungsod (City Council) and signed on the proverbial dotted lines of the final contract by Fernandez and Boughton, the Fernandez Administration failed to tell all and sundry that it was a long daunting task before Sure Global starts it construction at the 28, 062 square meters land in Barangay Bonuan Binloc, Dagupan City.
Even the Fernandez Administration on its last year failed to inform and insist to the public that the Waste to Work Project was a serious business and ready to be unveiled within this year. Mayor Fernandez failed to put a timetable liked how it progress during the identification of the site, her request to then President Benigno Aquino III for the selected site that would be carved out from the public domain that was eventually granted in 2016, the mini-groundbreaking of the project in September 2018, the Environmental Clearance Certificate's approval from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on September 25, 2019 after it was applied by Sure in 2016, and the multi million dollars' machine that could process the waste had already been manufactured in South Korea and is ready for shipment to Dagupan City.
It took Broughton, who appeared last November 12 in the Sangguniang Panglungsod (city council), to tell the members: “Take a look at it. Everything that we need to do is already done. There is nothing to hide”.
She came here to ask for an unequivocal support in black and white from Mayor Lim because of some reports that the latter wanted to renege on the project and was looking for other investors who can offer the same. She added that once Sure Global has the Letter of Support from the Lim Administration, the corporation will start to bring $3 million (more than P160 million) worth of investment in Dagupan City.
Councilor Netu Tamayo cautioned in the August chamber that there will be a looming civil suit that awaits them and the Lim Administration in case it abrogates its contract signed by the city government through Mayor Fernandez.
Civil indemnity means tens of millions of pesos damaged awarded by the court to Sure Global against the violator. Imprisonment is not part of the damage as some gung-ho media men espoused as the probable charge or charges to be resorted by Sure Global is a civil case and not criminal case he he he.
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Former Sual Mayor Bing Arcinue, who just arrived from the United States, told reporters that unknown to many people the 6.6 Magnitude earthquake that hit some towns in Mindanao also included a town in Pangasinan.
“Iyong sa Sual 8.0 Magnitude. Mantakin niyo noong lumindol sa Mindanao, nadamay iyong plaza na pinasemento ko na nilagyan namin ng mga superheroes. Walang magawa si Batman, Spider Man, Spider Woman, at Superman pati iyong higanting dragon doon natumba silang lahat," he cited.
He amused us by saying that the ground there shook tremendously as heavy demolition equipment incessantly punches with its hammer the concrete ground there.
“Grabe ang yugyog ng lupa walang sinabi ang lindol sa Mindanao!”.
He said Mayor Dong Calugay ordered the wrecking of the mostly concrete huge town plaza fronting the municipal hall to erase any memory of the Arcinue’s Administration by planning to construct another design there.
Geez, Kuya Bing, as we fondly call him, insinuated that the demolition stunt there seems to be another profligacy of precious government funds.
Mayor Arcinue said the plaza was aesthetically decorated by those super heroes, a giant dragon used as slide for children, a gazebo, fountain where illuminated by various colors at nighttime, a huge marker with signage “I loved Sual” where people in and out of town posed for photo ops have been ripped off “mercilessly” while the concrete floor of the plaza turned into smithereens by a backhoe.
“Was the destruction of the plaza was really to replace it or there is another agenda for its demolition?” another reporter asked the former mayor.
Arcinue added that during his term he built a million led lights that draped the façade of the mammoth municipal hall considered one of the biggest in Pangasinan.
“It was a first in Pangasinan and many town halls were decorated as mayors there emulated in their modest ways Sual,” Arcinue who used to lead the No. 2 richest 1,200 megawatt coal power plant hosting town in the country according to the Commission on Audit.
He recalled that he even seen at one dusk there Dagupan City then administrator Farah Decano, a lawyer, sightseeing with friends on the twinkling and tantalizing work- of- art Christmas light exhibition.
“Farah told me they were there for the vaunted lighting system of the town,” Arcinue added.
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