The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) plans to tap the Green Financing Program (GFP) of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) to fill up the financing gap in the establishment of some 300 sanitary landfills across the country.
“We are looking forward to a collaboration with the DENR because ever since DBP is very much involved into the different projects or thrust of the DENR,” Paul D. Lazaro, head of the DBP Lending Program Management Group, was quoted in a statement as saying.
The DENR plans to close all remaining open dumps, about 230, in the country by the end of March. The DENR is tasked to help local government units (LGUs) establish their own sanitary landfills for proper waste disposal.
Resource-poor LGUs often complain of the cost of putting up engineered sanitary landfills, the final waste-disposal facility allowed under Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, to justify the operation of open dumps by private firms in their localities.
The meeting between the DENR and the DBP, Lazaro said, will give the DBP “a better approach in terms of solid waste management.”
Before the meeting, the DENR facilitated the creation of the sanitary landfill operators’ coalition to boost collaboration with the agency and help in identifying strategic areas where they can operate.
The DENR plans to link the LGU to the DBP for the purchase of the land for the SLF site. The DENR also plans to link the LGU with the private sector who will construct the facility.
Lazaro said the DBP can consider the public-private partnershop because it can finance both the local government and the private sector.
Rustico Noli D. Cruz, head of the DBP Program Development and Management Department, said the bank can provide financing solution to SLF operators through its GFP.
According to Cruz, the GFP is the bank’s umbrella program for all environmental and climate change projects, including solid and hazardous waste management, air and water pollution, resource conservation, and energy efficiency.
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