Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto on Tuesday said that Christmas Day, and even New Year are challenging days in waste collection given the volume of garbage from all households in the city.

Sotto, however, said that waste collection in Pasig has improved a lot compared to previous years.

In a weekly flag-raising ceremony on Tuesday, Sotto also thanked the peace and order department for tirelessly working to keep the city safe, even if they should be celebrating the holidays with their families.

Sotto also said that the city's yearly challenge is the selling and use of illegal firecrackers.

The city government, he said, is not tolerating whitewashing, instead, things that need to be improved are being noted and acknowledged.

The local chief executive also said that the lack of uniformed personnel is also one of the challenges of the city.

He then acknowledged the work of the Pasig City Police Station, saying that he would be waiting for their report on the number of firecracker-related incidents in the city.

Sotto said that in the initial report, it is obvious that the number of incidents is still substantial but not as high as the previous years. The local chief executive is hoping that next year, the number of firecracker-related incidents will become lower.

According to him, the city government will assess and study if it is possible to consider the total prohibition of the use of firecrackers in the city.

"Being in the center of Metro Manila makes it difficult to track violators — they would just cross the street, then they will be in another local government unit already," he said.

Sotto stressed that the main challenge is the lack of manpower (uniformed personnel). But considering this, he commended the city's peace and order department for their hard work and told them that they did a good job.