Graft complaint filed vs. BCDA, CDC, DENR execs over closure of Tarlac landfill 

Graft and administrative complaint was filed before the Office of the Ombudsman against top officials of the government-owned corporation Clark Development Corporation (CDC), its parent agency Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), and the regional Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the alleged "conspiracy" to close a sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac and favor other companies.

The complaint was filed by the Metro Clark Waste Management Corporation (MCWMC) against BCDA President and CEO Joshua Bingcang, BCDA chairperson Delfin Lorenzana, BCDA officer-in-charge Gizela Kalalo, CDC president and CEO Agnes Devanadera, and DENR director Jacqueline Caancan. 

When asked for its reaction, BCDA, through its Vice President for Public Affairs Leilani Macasaet said,  "Our principals have yet to receive a copy of the said complaint."

GMA News Online also reached out to the DENR and the CDC, but they have yet to respond as of this posting.

In a 29-page complaint affidavit dated September 9,  MCWMC said the respondents aim to cut short their 50-year lease with CDC from 2049 to October 2024, covering the 100-hectare site of the Kalangitan Sanitary Landfill.

The company said this violated Republic Act No. 7652 or the “Investors’ Lease Act” and the Executive Order No. 429, series of 1997. 

“Simply put, acting in conspiracy with one another, public respondents disregarded the sanctity of the lease between CDC and complainant MCWMC over the 100-hectare area which is the site of the Kalangitan Landfill and have performed overt acts to realize their sinister design of unlawfully evicting MCMW from the leased area to favor certain companies also engaged in waste management,” the complaint read. 

The MCWMC also alleged that the BCDA is favoring 10 competitor companies to undertake the waste management of several local government units that it is catering to without public bidding. 

“The above actuations of respondents are likewise discriminatory as complainant MCWMC is deliberately excluded from the list provided by the respondents to the LGUs that can undertake their waste disposal problems,” the complaint read. 

Further, the MCWMC is concerned that the absence of an abandonment plan for the impending closure of the landfill “will create unimaginable waste disposal problems of historic proportions affecting millions of Filipinos as expressed by the various LGUs," it added.

The MCWMC is also seeking the issuance of preventive suspension against the respondents pending the resolution of the case. 

“The above actuations of respondents involve oppression or grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service and would warrant their removal from office or that respondents’ continued stay in the office may prejudice the just, fair, and independent disposition of the criminal and administrative cases filed against them, for which reason they should be preventively suspended pending resolution of these cases,” the complaint read. —LDF, GMA Integrated News