Following the upheavals from various stakeholders and local government units for the mulled shutdown of Kalangitan sanitary landfill facilities in Capas, Tarlac, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) on Monday assured that they have already mitigated the mess.

The Kalangitan sanitary landfill, which is under a 25-year contract with the state-run Clark Development Corp., will stop operation this 5 October 2024, which is said to cause a huge catastrophe such as piling of hospital wastes.

The BCDA and its subsidiary, CDC recently ruled not to extend the contract with the operator of Kalangitan landfill, the Metro Clark Waste Management Corporation (MCWMC).

"The BCDA will assist local government units, government agencies, and locators to explore alternative solutions for the affected stakeholders’ waste disposal requirements to ensure non-disruption of solid waste management services," according to the statement of the BCDA on Monday.

In a press conference last week, Danny Abadilla, president of the Clark Sanitation Services revealed that closing Kalangitan sanitary landfill could mean hell to Northern and Central Luzon, Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, and Palawan hospitals, as most wastes coming to these hospital regions are treated at their recovery facility before delivered to the said landfill.

This is the reason why Abadilla's group is contradicting the closure, which was also opposed by BCDA.

"Pursuant to the legal opinion of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC), BCDA's statutory counsel, extending the contract between Clark Development Corporation (CDC) and MCWMC beyond October 2024 would be against the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, the framework used in bidding and awarding the contract for the project," it said.

Aside from this, the BCDA maintained that a sanitary landfill "is no longer consistent with the government's vision of transforming New Clark City into a premier investment and tourism destination."

Moreover, the BCDA said that based on a report from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) Region III, two existing facilities in Pampanga may be utilized upon the end of MCWMC's contract.

The said facilities have a combined total capacity of 3,500 metric tons (MT) of domestic waste per day, and a potential to expand further to 6,000 MT, which should allay fears of a looming garbage and health crisis in the region.

"Further, the BCDA has been invited to the opening of another materials recovery facility in Porac, Pampanga with a capacity of 5,000 MT per day. This brings the total combined capacity to 11,000 MT, which is more than enough to address the solid waste management requirements of Tarlac, Pampanga, and other provinces in and around the region," the BCDA said.

Earlier last month, local government units (LGUs) in Central and Northern Luzon hit the facility's shutdown plans.

It is said that at least 122 representatives of LGUs in Pampanga, Tarlac, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Zambales, Bataan, Pangasinan, and Benguet signed a petition addressed to Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ma. Antonio Yulo-Loyzaga to halt the scheduled closure of the landfill.