Manila — Marking the 8th year anniversary of a medical waste incinerator-free Philippines, five organizations who started the Stop Toxic Debt! campaign today questioned the unscrupulous annual debt payment of US$2 million for a defunct medical waste incinerator project which the Philippines entered into in 1996.
Ecowaste Coalition, Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Greenpeace Southeast Asia and Health Care Without Harm-Southeast Asia (HCWH-SEA) in a statement said that it is very ironic that the people are paying for incinerators which were retired way back in 2003 with the passage of the Philippine Clean Air Act. CAA has strong provisions against use of incinerators and other ‘dirty technologies’.
“US$2 million is a huge amount of money,” said Merci Ferrer of HCWH-SEA. “This amount should be rechanneled to much needed health services, specifically funding for safe waste treatment and disposal of public hospitals and other health care facilities’ infectious wastes.”
The Philippine and Austrian Governments entered into a P503 million Austrian Medical Waste Incinerator Project that provided incinerators to 26 public hospitals around the country to help in the proper disposal of medical waste. In 1999, however, the Philippines successfully banned the use of incinerators for general wastes and subsequently the use of incinerators for medical waste in 2003. The country remains the only country in the world to ban incinerators.
“The incinerators brought to the Philippines by the Austrian supplier failed to pass the emission levels that the supplier themselves guaranteed,” said Beau Baconguis of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. “This is a complete betrayal of public trust. We ask, 'whose side is the Philippine government on?”
A subsequent test conducted by the Department of Health (DoH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that the incinerators emitted unconscionable amounts of pollutants, exceeding the Philippine environmental standards by 870 times.
The groups likewise raised concerns on the numerous incinerator-in-disguise projects that are currently being allowed by the government. “The law says ban on incinerators. Yet projects which replaced the words ‘burning’ and ‘incinerating’ with ‘pyrolysis’ and ‘indirect heat’ are being allowed,” said Paeng Lopez of GAIA.
“We are asking the new government to look closely into the issue. We lobbied the previous government to cancel this loan but to no avail,” said Milo Tanchuling of FDC. “We hope the new government will be crafting a clear fiscal policy that is biased towards the cancellation of illegitimate and onerous debts.”
FDC also challenged the Aquino government to conduct a comprehensive debt audit to appraise the country’s debts and determine which are patently illegitimate or tainted with anomalies. “One of President Aquino’s electoral promises was the resolution of the country’s debt problem. We hope the Aquino government will be proactive on this matter and stick to its promise of ‘matuwid na daan’. Dahil sa matuwid na daan, walang ilehitimong utang,” said Tanchuling.
In 2008, both houses of Congress agreed to reduce the debt payment of the loan. In a symbolic move, the Congress appropriated the principal and interest payments amounting to 100 M for the purchase of alternative non-burn autoclave machines. The debt payment reduction was however vetoed by then President Gloria Arroyo and the 100 M allocation for autoclave remains unreleased to date. The request for 100 M allotment for alternatives surfaced again in the 2009 and 2010 budget proposals from the DoH but was impounded by the President in 2009 and vetoed in 2010 requiring that the release of the increased items of appropriations be subject to the identification by Congress of new revenue measures in support thereof. It further required that all allowable increase in appropriations should carry with it a corresponding increase in the respective outputs and improved outcomes of the agencies concerned.
Rei Panaligan of Ecowaste Coalition expressed concern why a copy of the final official loan contract could not be provided. “We would like to look at the content of the contract. If other companies have a take-back policy, it will be good if the Austrian government will clean-up the wastes that the incinerators have left by cancelling the loan.”
The government started paying the loan in 2001 and is scheduled to pay an average of US$2 million a year until 2014.
“We are paying for supposedly state-of-the-art medical waste incinerators that were proven to be substandard and emitting dioxins way beyond the limit,” said Ferrer. “Eight years of being medical waste incinerator-free and still we are imprisoned to this questionable debt.”
Late last year, the DoH in its Health Executive Agenda for Legislation (HEAL) proposed amendment of the CAA to re-allow the use of incinerators. This was however cancelled following a round table meeting with environment organizations.
Note:
Among the hospitals who hosted the incinerators are Albay Provincial Hospital (now Bicol Regional Training and Teaching Hospital), Baguio General Hospital, Batangas Regional Hospital, Bicol Regional Hospital, Cagayan Valley Regional Hospital, Davao Medical Center, Davao Regional Hospital, Dr Paulino Garcia Memorial Hospital, East Avenue Medical Center, Ilocos Regional Hospital (now Ilocos Training and Regional Medical Center), Jose B. Lingad Memorial General Hospital in Pampanga, Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center in Ilocos, Northern Mindanao Medical Center, Philippine Orthopedic Hospital, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Teofilo Sison Memorial Medical Center (now Region I Medical Center) in Pangasinan, Vicente Sotto Sr. Memorial Medical Center in Cebu and Western Visayas Medical Center