By Ria Fernandez
Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada on Wednesday warned IPM Construction and Development Corporation, the city's garbage collecting contractor, to fulfill its responsibilities or he would terminate its services.
Former President and now Manila mayor Erap Estrada
(Linus Escandor/ MANILA BULLETIN)
Estrada issued the warning after receiving numerous complaints regarding uncollected garbage.
"Etong mga nakalipas na linggo po kasi karamihan po ng natatanggap na reklamo sa kaniyang opisina yung mga hindi nahahakot na basura. Kaya nga po nung isang linggo binigyan niya po ng babala yung ating kontraktor na ayusin yung paghahakot at kung hindi baka ho makansela na yung kanilang kontrata sa Lungsod ng Maynila (These past few weeks, most of the complaints that his office received were the uncollected wastes. That's why last week, Mayor Estrada warned the contractor to fix its garbage collection or else their contract with the City of Manila would be cancelled)," Atty. Ericson Alcovendaz, Manila City Administrator and spokesperson, said in a radio interview Tuesday morning.
Alcovendaz said that based on monitoring, the contractor failed to meet its obligation to deploy at least 190 trucks and collect garbage on time.
"Nilagyan ho natin ng GPS yung mga truck nila para ma-monitor natin kung tama yung oras ng daan nila sa isang barangay at oras ng paghakot ng basura kaya ho nakikita namin na kulang ang kanilang ginagamit (We installed a GPS in each of the trucks so we can monitor if they are collecting garbage on time. We saw that they were not using enough trucks),” he pointed out.
The city government is paying IPM P650 million every year for its services.
So far, after Estrada's warning, Alcovendaz said that the contractor has resumed its regular operations since Monday.