Kalangitan landfill:  From environmental to political

The raging issue of the Kalangitan landfill has been going on for nearly four years now. Both the anti- and pro-landfill forces have raised their points. Ironically, both fall on a common aim: the environment.

            The people are now left numbly following the dictates of the provincial government when it embraced the Clark Development Corporation (CDC) project.

            But that issue is merely environmental, as it has given birth to a much complicated political combat. It is rather obscure for the injudicious to make out the pressure that the Capitol has been bearing down on the anti-landfill leaders. For this, Private-I imparts its scrutiny.

            The likes of Capas Mayor Rey Catacutan and board member Chad Apostol, president of the Philippine Councilors’ League-Tarlac Chapter, could not be blamed as they reproach the powerful force at the Capitol for the harassment they have been experiencing since the heightening of the Kalangitan issue.

            Many suspect already that Yap and his lackeys in the provincial board have been offered a huge pay-off for them to support the landfill project. Unfortunately,  no one could prove it just as no one knows what really transpired between the CDC and the governor. Alas, the anti-landfill force could only raise evident forms of manipulations that indeed have made the environmental issue a political one.

BROKEN PROMISE

              Yap has successfully “lured” the ranks of the anti-landfill movement before running for reelection in the May polls last year after he signed a covenant, so to speak, with the Church and militant leaders in opposing the CDC’s project.

            But months after reclaiming office, he said “Yes” to the project, turning his back from his solemn pact with the Church-led anti-landfill movement, and thus carried on his plan.  He has embraced the landfill project and, the way it looks, with all the manipulations Yap and his henchmen perpetuated, he wants it concretized the soonest time possible by hook or by crook.

            Of course, his anti-turned-pro-landfill stand had to be justified, by using his puppets in the provincial board –led by certified political double agents Vice Gov. Bogs Aganon and board majority leader Carlito “Casada” David – by way of a moro-moro public consultation on the issue that supposedly led to the passage of a pro-landfill resolution.

            There were, however, two board members who stood up to their principles, Chad Apostol and Alvin Belarmino.  But like Catacutan, Belarmino and Apostol had to suffer the political fury of Yap’s wrath, with the latter nearly becoming a victim of a plot to have him ousted as PCL-Tarlac chair.

THE REASON BEHIND

            Highly-placed sources and pundits as well presume that some juicy contracts in the landfill project were dangled before Capitol occupants, not only to silence them from opposing the project, but more so, to deliberately warmly usher the German consortium into Kalangitan as efforts are out to scrub off the superfluous anti-landfill forces.

            Of course, this is not even mentioning the political end behind all of the governor’s desperate efforts against political dissidents in the landfill issue, which smacks of hitting two birds with one stone. 

POLITICAL COLOR

            With this, the landfill issue went overboard from being a mere threat to the environment and the people’s safety. It is now a political issue, one that is being used by incumbent Capitol occupants to eliminate their opponents.

            Two prominent names in the anti-landfill movement have emerged as they confess of pressures from the Capitol – Catacutan being confronted with supposedly made up administrative and criminal cases filed with the Ombudsman, and board member Apostol, who fortunately was able to anticipate a plot to oust him as PCL chair.

            The strange string of suspiciously fabricated cases filed against Catacutan, who is identified with the Lakas-NUCD-Kampi bloc of Yap’s political rivals, have been certainly manipulated by the governor’s men.

            Of course, the oust-Apostol plot cannot be denied to be linked to his anti-landfill stand, with the conspiracy immediately surmised to have had been hatched by the governor’s henchmen in what could be described as an act of political vendetta.  Besides, the supposed manifesto of the councilors calling for Apostol’s ouster from office was even confirmed to have been circulated by Yap himself for signing.

WHAT LIES AHEAD

            Now that it all appears that Yap does not only favor hell to break loose in Kalangitan with the CDC project’s implementation, but is also hell-bent at crushing the frontlines of the anti-landfill movement, expect therefore efforts to have Catacutan defeated in the coming May 2004 polls should the Capas mayor decide to run for reelection.

            This presumption is not only because Catacutan does not belong to the governor’s political party, but more so, to ensure the smooth implementation of the 25-year build-operate-transfer (BOT) project of the CDC.  From this premise, anticipate also the possibility of pro-landfill money pouring into Capas.

            A litmus test to this political prediction will be best manifested in July this year, when Capas joins the nationwide holding of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections.

            Should this political trend continue with its course, then pro-landfill forces will surely field candidates against village bets backed by Catacutan and party, ostensibly to weaken the mayor’s political hold in his hometown.  For notably, majority of the incumbent village officials of Capas fully support Catacutan in the anti-landfill crusade.