The Cebu City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CCENRO) has been excluded from the composite team tasked with investigating and overseeing the rehabilitation of the Prime Integrated Waste Solutions (PWS) facility in Barangay Binaliw, following the tragic trash slide on January 8, 2026, which killed 36 people.
CCENRO Left Out of Key Discussions
CCENRO Head Edita Peros stated that her office, which has the mandate to conduct environmental inspections and monitor compliance with environmental laws as part of the city’s closure and rehabilitation framework, was never invited or formally included in the composite group formed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7 and other agencies.
“As far as I recall, we did not receive any invitation,” Peros said. She added that her office has been out of the loop in important discussions and field operations related to the facility.
Peros explained that CCENRO is always tasked with monitoring the area, but they are consistently denied entry to the facility. She noted that they are usually limited to external inspections and rely on drones to observe the situation because they lack permission to enter.
“We are usually not allowed inside; we only stay outside. So we can only use drones. But regarding operations inside, we cannot access them. Especially recently, because they said they were doing rehabilitation and for our safety, they would not let us in,” she said.
She also revealed that even during the January 8 incident, CCENRO personnel were reportedly not allowed entry unless accompanied by the City Administrator.
Councilor Confirms Exclusion
Councilor Joel Garganera, chairman of the committee on environment, supported these claims and confirmed that they had a similar experience during a composite meeting on February 8 at the Office of the Mayor, where the government’s response to the landfill incident was discussed.
According to Garganera, even city officials and DENR representatives admitted they were not allowed to enter the facility during inspections, raising many questions about transparency and oversight.
For Garganera, the exclusion of CCENRO is very concerning, especially in light of the tragedy. “It is very alarming that even the city’s environmental office is being prevented from fully participating in the investigation and monitoring of that facility,” he said.
Partial Lifting of Cease-and-Desist Order
Peros also revealed that they had no information about the alleged partial lifting of the cease-and-desist order (CDO) imposed on the facility, which allowed operations to continue under an interim arrangement. She said that since April 25, the facility has been accepting waste from private companies, a fact that even some City Council members were unaware of.
“We have had no communication with PrimeWaste and we have not received any documents for coordination purposes,” Peros said.
Under this arrangement, the facility now only accepts a limited volume of waste from private commercial sources, while operating under what is called an “interim cell” with conditions imposed by the DENR Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) 7.
A representative from DENR 7 confirmed during a council hearing that there was a partial lifting of the CDO, but it was limited to the interim cell and not the entire landfill area.
Calls for Transparency and Access
However, councilors expressed concern about allowing partial operations without full coordination with the city government, especially since the investigation into the January 8 tragedy is still ongoing. The incident was previously described by authorities as a possible crime scene due to the high number of fatalities.
Peros called on PrimeWaste to allow CCENRO to enter the facility so they can fulfill their mandate of proper monitoring. “We just request PrimeWaste that, if possible, we be informed of their activities and be allowed to enter their facility when we conduct our monitoring,” she said.
This issue has further highlighted concerns about environmental oversight, inter-agency coordination, and transparency in the ongoing rehabilitation of one of the most controversial waste disposal facilities in Cebu, which has resumed operations despite many unanswered questions about the January 8 tragedy.
