Part 2: The P437 million question – Follow the hauling
In the halls of government, there is an old saying: “Follow the money.” If you want to understand why a policy as brilliant as RA 9003 has failed to transform our streets, you need only look at the budget. For the year 2026, the City of Bacolod has committed a staggering P436.9 million to its solid waste management program. To the average Bacolodnon, this looks like a necessary expense for cleanliness. To the “governance” eye, however, it represents a massive transfer of public wealth into private hands—and a structural incentive to keep our city “dirty.”
THE ANATOMY OF THE 2026 CONTRACT
Let us break down the numbers that were ratified in early January 2026. The city’s waste management is now in the hands of the ISWIMS Consortium (International Solid Waste Integrated Management Specialist Inc., D.C. Sandil Construction, and San Igmedio Builders). The deal is split into two massive pillars:
- P327.9 Million for garbage collection, hauling, and disposal.
- P109 Million for the operation and maintenance of the sanitary landfill in Brgy. Felisa.
When nearly half a billion pesos is on the line, waste is no longer an environmental problem—it is a commodity. In the world of hauling, your trash is their “gold.” This brings us to the first major hurdle of honest governance: The Tonnage Trap.
THE INCENTIVE FOR INEFFICIENCY
Most hauling contracts in the Philippines are based on volume—trips made, tons collected, or a “lump sum” predicated on the assumption that the city will continue to produce vast amounts of waste.
Herein lies the perverse incentive: A waste hauler makes more money when there is more waste to haul. If every Bacolodnon practiced the “3Rs” and every barangay operated its own composting garden, the volume of trash would drop by 50% to 60%. For a private contractor, that 50% drop is not an environmental victory—it is a 50% loss in potential revenue.
When the government enters into these massive, centralized contracts, it accidentally becomes a partner in waste production. The more “efficient” our community gardens become, the less “useful” the multi-million peso fleet of 60 garbage trucks becomes. This creates a silent resistance within the bureaucracy. Why would a “waste-collecting” city hall truly push for “waste-reducing” barangays when it has already committed P327.9 million to a hauler?
THE ‘OPAQUE SHIELD’ OF CENTRALIZATION
You have often mentioned the “big commissions” given to government officials by waste collectors. While difficult to prove without a whistleblower, the structure of centralized hauling makes such “dirty money” incredibly easy to hide.
When waste management is centralized, only a handful of people—the Bids and Awards Committee, the Mayor’s Office, and the contractor’s executives—are in the room where it happens. A single 10% or 20% “commission” on a P437 million contract is a life-changing amount of money for a few, but it is a “death by a thousand cuts” for the city’s treasury.
In contrast, if that P437 million were decentralized—distributed among the 61 barangays of Bacolod for local MRFs and community gardens—the money would be under the eyes of thousands of residents. It is much harder to steal from a P500,000 barangay project when your neighbors are watching the garden grow. Centralization acts as a shield; it keeps the budget high, the stakeholders few, and the accountability low.
THE OPPORTUNITY COST OF A TRASH MOUNTAIN
What could Bacolod do with P437 million if we weren’t just paying people to move dirt from one place to another?
We could build 61 world-class Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) at P2 million each (Total: P122M) and still have over P300 million left for social services.
We could provide seed capital for 500 community gardens, ensuring food security for our poorest residents.
We could hire thousands of “Eco-Aides” directly from our barangays, giving them dignified, formal jobs instead of letting them scavenge in the hazardous conditions of the Felisa landfill.
Instead, we spend that money to keep the “hauling-and-landfill” industrial complex alive. We pay for the fuel, the trucks, and the “commissions,” while the actual mandate of RA 9003—the reduction of waste—remains a secondary thought.
RECLAIMING THE BUDGET
As Bacolodnons, we must realize that our taxes are being used to fund a system that needs us to be wasteful. Every time we throw away a banana peel that could have been compost, or a plastic bottle that could have been recycled, we are indirectly feeding the “commission” system.
The “Grace” in this situation is transparency. We must demand that the city government release the “waste diversion” metrics of the ISWIMS contract. If we are paying P437 million, what is the guaranteed reduction in waste? Or are we simply paying for the privilege of seeing a bigger mountain of trash in Brgy. Felisa by December?
In Part 3, we will look at the next “great hope” being sold to us: Waste-to-Energy (WTE). We will see why this high-tech solution is actually the most expensive trap of all—a “super-charged” version of the hauling monopoly that threatens not only our treasury but our very health.*
