President Marcos has assured communities affected by the fire at the Navotas Sanitary Landfill that there will be no repeat of the incident that affected residents in Malabon and Obando, Bulacan.

During his visit in Obando on Thursday, May 21, to lead the distribution of government assistance, Marcos acknowledged the dangers the fire caused, particularly its impeach on air quality.

He emphasized that what made it worst was the extreme heat, which, he said, triggered the fire, along with methane gas buidup.

"Wala tayong magagawa dahil alam naman ninyo ‘pag tag-araw, talagang napaka-init. Sumisindi – lumiliyab pala nang mag-isa ‘yan eh. Walang nagsindi. Basta’t lumiliyab na lang mag-isa. Kaya ganyan po ang nangyari (There’s nothing we can do because, as you know, during the summer it really gets extremely hot. It catches fire — or rather, it bursts into flames on its own. No one started it. It just suddenly ignites by itself. That’s what happened)," Marcos said.

"Sana ay nasa mabuti na kayong kalagayan. Tapos na, patay na yung apoy, at hindi na mauuli (I hope you are all doing well now. It’s over, the fire has been extinguished, and it will not happen again)," Marcos added.

The President also explained that it took time before the fire was extinguished because the landfill was extremely deep, adding that it was not possible to simply put out the fire with water from firetrucks.

He said the water would not reach the bottom. This prompted responders to cover it with wet soil.

"Iyong mga kaibigan natin sa mga kompanya na nagre-reclaim ay nagpatulong kami. Sabi namin ‘yun na nga, ‘yung mga hinuhukay ninyo, sa amin niyo na dalhin ‘yan at para maitambak namin doon sa may apoy (What we did was ask for help from the companies doing reclamation projects here, and we told them: just bring here the soil you are excavating and we will dump it to the fire)," Marcos said.

Marcos also reported that before the dumping of soil was conducted, they also had to build a road so large trucks could get through to unload the soil needed to extinguish the fire underneath.

"Two storeys pala, ganyan – ganyang kataas yung basura. Kaya't yung apoy hanggang dito sa baba. Kaya't hindi kaya na basta yung fire truck na basta babasain lang na ganoon, hindi kaya (It turned out the garbage was about two storeys high. So the fire had reached all the way down below. That’s why it couldn’t simply be handled by fire trucks spraying water on it)," he said.

"Kaya sa awa ng Diyos, after one week pagkatapos nun nagsimula yung pagtambak ng lupa ay nawala na yung apoy. Sana naman wala naman masyadong napinsala. Wala naman masyadong nagkasakit (By the grace of God, after one week of piling soil onto the site, the fire was finally extinguished. Hopefully, not too much damage was done. Hopefully, not too many people got sick)," he added.

The President also noted that the smoke from the fire was dangerous, stressing that "it's not like ordinary smoke coming from burning wood or something similar. There are all sorts of things underneath that."

"Kasi kung papel-papel lang, kahoy lang, yung plastic ang delikado. Iba pala ‘yung lumalabas diyan. Kaya yung iba, kung masyadong mabigat ang usok ay magkakasakit (Because if it’s just paper or wood, that’s different, plastic is the dangerous one. Apparently, something different comes out of it. That’s why some people get sick when the smoke is too thick)," Marcos said.

The Chief Executive also told residents that the governnent will keep a close watch on such kind of situations from now on.

"Di bale, mula ngayon talagang babantayan na natin yung mga ganyang klaseng (Anyway, from now on we will keep a close watch on those kinds of incidents)," he said.