Before Moving Waste and Missiles: Puerto Princesa Must First Account for What It Will Destroy
Waste management and national defense are public concerns—but both must still protect Palawan’s forests, mangroves, communities, and public trust.
By Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC)
Opinion & Editorial
Puerto Princesa is often called the City in a Forest. But this name is not a slogan to be worn when convenient. It is a public duty. Every major decision affecting land, forests, mangroves, ancestral domains, coastal waters, and communities must be measured against that duty.
Today, two developments raise serious questions about governance, transparency, and environmental accountability in Palawan: the proposed transfer of Puerto Princesa’s sanitary landfill from Barangay Sta. Lourdes to the proposed Caiholo Environmental Management Facility Complex in Barangay Bahile, and the reported development of a military structure/facility (to house a Missile-named military group) in a forest area.
These are different projects. One concerns waste. The other concerns national defense. But they share one urgent question: Has the government first studied, valued, and publicly explained what these projects will cost Palawan’s environment and communities?
The landfill issue: moving garbage is not the same as solving waste
Online reports and public documents show that the city has pursued plans for a waste management facility in Barangay Bahile. A 2021 report said the City Environment and Natural Resources Office proposed declaring 5,119 hectares of Barangay Bahile as the Caiholo Ecosystem Management Zone for materials recovery and other waste management facilities, about 50 kilometers from the city proper and adjacent to a military reservation.
A public scoping document for the proposed Environmental Management Facility Complex states that the project would occupy about 20 hectares in Sitio Caiholo, Barangay Bahile, and that the whole development is estimated to cost six hundred fourteen million and 04/100 (₱614.04 million), with a construction period of about four years.
ELAC recognizes that Puerto Princesa needs a lawful, safe, and efficient waste management system. But transferring residual waste to a farther site without a transparent and independent assessment of the existing Sta. Lourdes landfill risks creating a new problem while leaving the old one unresolved.
The city must first answer basic questions. What is the real condition of the Sta. Lourdes landfill? What is its remaining capacity? What are the risks from the nearby abandoned mercury mine, which the project scoping document itself mentions as a reason why expansion of the existing landfill may not be appropriate? Has the city exhausted waste reduction, segregation, composting, and materials recovery before deciding to transport residual waste farther away?
Under Republic Act No. 9003, sanitary landfill siting must consider the LGU land use plan, accessibility, community sensitivities, environmental resources such as aquifers, groundwater reservoirs, and watersheds, budgetary constraints, and coordination with recycling and resource recovery projects. The same law requires an Environmental Compliance Certificate before the construction or expansion of a solid waste management facility.
This means the issue is not only whether Bahile can host a landfill. The issue is whether the city has proven that moving waste there is the most ecological, cost-effective, and publicly accountable option.
A farther landfill means more fuel, more hauling time, more truck maintenance, more road wear, and potentially higher public expenditure for the transport of residual waste. It may also create new procurement opportunities worth hundreds of millions of pesos. That alone demands strict safeguards against wasteful spending, inflated costs, and political influence.
For communities in Barangay Bahile who have opposed the plan, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is about their land, their health, their roads, their water, their farms, and their future.
The West Coast military site: defense cannot be an exemption from environmental duty
ELAC recognizes the legitimate role of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Western Command in protecting the West Philippine Sea and national territory. Palawan is strategically important, and the threats to our territorial waters are real. ELAC has worked with the navy personnel of the AFP, coastguards, and wardens of the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park (TRNP) in the apprehension and prosecution of Chinese poachers several years ago.
But national defense does not erase environmental responsibility.
ELAC’s concern is not the presence of a military unit tasked to help protect the West Philippine Sea. The concern is the reported development of roads or support facilities in a west coast mangrove or forest area without clear public disclosure of the site’s ecological classification, legal status, and environmental value.
If the area is being proposed as a place to host or station a military unit, the public still deserves to know: What type of land will be affected? Is it a mangrove forest, an old-growth forest, secondary growth, coastal public land, an ancestral domain, or part of an ECAN zone? Has there been a biodiversity assessment, tree inventory, mangrove valuation, hydrological study, or social impact assessment? Were affected communities consulted?
These are not minor technicalities. In Palawan, Republic Act No. 7611, or the Strategic Environmental Plan for Palawan, requires that projects affecting Palawan’s environment and natural resources align with the SEP framework and the Environmentally Critical Areas Network, or ECAN.
A military support site may serve a national security purpose. But if its development will clear forests, cut mangroves, alter coastal systems, or affect community access to land and water, then its environmental cost must be properly studied, disclosed, and compensated where required by law.
A mangrove is not vacant land. A forest is not idle land. A coastal ecosystem is not empty space waiting for a road. These are life-support systems. They protect communities from storm surges, support fisheries, store carbon, shelter wildlife, and sustain local livelihoods.
For ELAC, the issue is simple: defending the West Philippine Sea should not mean weakening the environmental defenses of Palawan’s own coastal communities.
What ELAC calls for
ELAC urges the Puerto Princesa City Government, DENR-EMB, PCSD, WESCOM, and other concerned agencies to act with transparency and caution.
For the proposed landfill transfer, ELAC calls for a full public disclosure of the assessment of the existing Sta. Lourdes landfill: remaining capacity, environmental risks, rehabilitation needs, and alternatives to relocation. The city must also disclose the full cost-benefit analysis of transporting waste to Bahile, including fuel use, maintenance, emissions, road impacts, long-term operations, and the projected public cost.
For the reported West Coast military development, ELAC calls for immediate disclosure of the site classification, ECAN zone, land tenure status, environmental studies, permits, and mitigation plans. If roads or structures have already been built, the public deserves to know whether these were covered by the required environmental and land-use clearances.
For both issues, affected barangays and communities must be meaningfully consulted—not merely informed after decisions have already been made.
Palawan does not need development that hides its costs. It needs governance that is honest about trade-offs, careful with public funds, respectful of communities, and faithful to the law.
The question before us is simple: Before the government moves waste, builds roads, or clears land, has it first listened, studied, disclosed, and accounted for what Palawan stands to lose?
Until that question is answered, ELAC stands with the communities asking for truth, accountability, and environmental justice.
Together, let us keep Palawan’s upland and coastal forests standing, its waters alive, and its public institutions worthy of the trust of present and future generations.
