BAGUIO CITY – Irate barangay officials and local residents lashed out at members of the city council for their refusal to approved the allocation of P26 million to continue the hauling of the city’s 300 tons of waste to the sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac to prevent a garbage crisis.

Hundreds of barangay officials recently walked out of the city council session hall after being disappointed when local legislators junked the request for reconsideration by the city mayor to allocate the P26 million earmarked for the hauling of garbage up to the end of this year.

Most of the barangay officials said some councilors with political ambitions to seek higher positions next year are now holding the whole city hostage by their whims and caprices since they insist that the hauling of garbage is no longer required. However, they could not even come out with a descent alternative to put an end to the garbage problem.

Tons of garbage have piled up along the city’s streets for over a week now but it seems some local officials refuse to act on the allocation of funds to ensure the continuity of the hauling of garbage.

Barangay officials said they will no longer listen to the appeal of local officials not to allow their constituents to hold in abeyance the bringing out of their domestic wastes since they could no longer handle the situation.

Councilors who are against the allocation of funds for garbage hauling claimed the local chief executive has allegedly wasted the people’s money for hauling alone and reportedly left out the city’s other priority projects that were never funded since the problem worsened more than a year ago.

Just for 14 months, the city government had already used up over P200 million to haul the city’s waste to Tarlac while no funds are being allotted for peacekeeping and other infrastructure impact projects.

The city’s problem, the barangay officials explained, is that there is too much politicking among local officials to the extent of compromising the image of the city in the international and national scenes.

Furthermore, they alleged it seems the city government wants to solve the issue on piecemeal basis and not simultaneously working on garbage hauling, construction of materials recovery facilities, and the eventual establishment of the long overdue engineered sanitary landfill in Sto. Tomas Apugan barangay here or in Alimang, Poblacion, Sablan, Benguet.