Talibon, Ubay, Trinidad, lead

Bohols best ESWM programs 

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, March 29 (PIA)—Five second district towns, three third district and two first district towns came out big winners in the 2016-2017 implementation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management (ESWM) programs enough to catapult them to Bohols top 10 towns in SWM. 

Talibon, Ubay and Trinidad, San Miguel and Danao brought honors to the second district, Pilar, Loboc and Candijay for the third district and Calape and Antequera came out winners for the first district in trash management. 

Talibon town, including its islets that have been accused of improper waste disposal redeemed itself and earned P300 thousand pesos, plus a plaque of appreciation for besting all Bohol towns in Ecological Solid Waste Management. 

Its secret? According to Municipal Engineer Lorenzo Flores, is nothing new, in fact is a practice they copied from the Bohol which spreads out accountability and appointing focal persons to help the municipal technical working group get the job done. 

Talibon accordingly expanded the membership of the Municipal Ecological Solid Waste Management task Force (MSWMTF) from the usual Association of Barangay Councils Chairman only, to the full participation of barangay chairmen for faster information cascading. 

He also said they expanded the Technical Working group to include barangay focal persons for SWM, for faster accountability. 

Finally, the town formulated a monitoring, evaluation and feed backing for all SWM activities and went down to checking even sanitary toilets. 

Talibon’s practice can also be replicated as other local government units can easily emulate, as long as everyone is serious about the task to advance trash management, according to Bohol Environment Management Officer Jovencia Ganub, during the awarding ceremonies. 

During the annual evaluation of Bohol’s Best Practices in Ecological Solid Waste Management among local governments, Engr. Flores, who was asked to give his comments said they did not expect to come home to their town 124 kilometers away with more cash they can use again to enhance local garbage management. 

Provincial monitoring and evaluation team chairperson Forester Richard Abella named Talibon as the top winner with their best practices after the multi-agency evaluation team lent to the town an aggregate score of 86.87, after ranking from a series of parameters in solid waste management. 

Ranking next to Talibon is Bohol’s largest town Ubay, which picked an aggregate evaluation score of 83.50, according to Abella. Ubay local environment officials claimed P275K cash prize for their efforts. 

Third in rank is Trinidad, which earned a total score of 81.79, and its officials brought home P250K. 

With a score of 681.25, Pilar came in next and its SWM officials carried home a plaque and cash amounting to P225K. 

Calape came in next with 80 total score and for it, local environment officials brought home P200K for their fifth place finish. 

Coming in sixth is Antequera, which garnered a total score of 79.00. Engr Erasmo Diez and Mayor Jose Mario Pahang received the P175K prize and plaque. 

Seventh best in ESWM is Loboc, which got a 77.5 total score and mayor Helen Alaba along with the MENRO claimed the town’s reward. 

On eight place is Candijay, which racked a total of 77.00 for the P125K cash reward. 

Ninth place went to San Miguel for a total score of 76.30 and a P100K cash reward, which can now be used immediately for SWM projects. 

Danao on the other hand bagged the tenth best ESWM with a total score of 76.25 as mayor Natividad Gonzaga and ESWM officials claimed the P75K reward. 

BEMO Ganub said they made sure a bigger reward comes out this year for the 2016-2017 ESWM monitoring and evaluation and added that they also made sure this time, the reward is cash and not just in the form of projects. 

Several town winners then were supposed to get projects as rewards but, a policy on unliquidated cash advances by the LGUs caused several prizes to be forfeited for lack of proper fiscal management on their part. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol) 

Talibon ESWM officials received the P300K cash reward for the town after picking 2016-2017 Best Practices in ESWM from BEMO Chief Jovencia Ganub and PDRRMO Anthony Damalerio who sat in for Gov Edgar Chatto in recent ceremonies at the Panda Tea Garden and Suites. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)