Palace: PH stand vs Canada over trash shipment ‘non-negotiable’
Credit to Author: CATHERINE S. VALENTE, TMT| Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 04:31:56 +0000
MALACAÑANG on Thursday maintained that the Philippine government’s stand for Canada to take back heaps of trash illegally shipped to the country was “non-negotiable.”
Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo made the statement as he warned Canada that it would risk its decades-old diplomatic ties with the Philippines if it failed to recover its garbage from the country.
“Our stand against its making our country a garbage bin of their waste is non-negotiable. It cannot dilly dally on its getting them back,” Panelo said in a statement.
“The 70 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries will be put to naught if Canada will not act with dispatch and finality the resolution of this undiplomatic episode to which we take outrage,” he said.
On Wednesday, Canada affirmed its commitment to working with the Philippine government over the garbage problem after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to declare war over the issue.
“A joint technical working group, consisting of officials from both countries, is examining the full spectrum of issues related to the removal of the waste with a view to a timely resolution,” the Canadian Embassy said in a statement.
Panelo said the Palace recognized Canada’s “quick but vague statement” on the issue but noted that it has not “taken any decisive action on this arrant hostile demeanor, it has not likewise expressed regrets thereto.”
“We take note that its response is not appropriate to the strong statement we made against its throwing its garbage to our land,” he said.
But the Palace official said Canada’s inaction of not taking the trash back to their country six years after it was sent to the Philippine was “offensive.”
“Its offensive act cannot be countenanced and any further discussion on the matter is unwelcome and unnecessary,” Panelo said.
“That it even considered performing such outlandish disposal of its garbage to an ally is dangerously disruptive of our bilateral relations,” he said.
Duterte, in a situation briefing in Pampanga after the magnitude 6.1 quake that hit parts of Luzon on Tuesday, threatened to declare war on Canada if it would not take its trash back.
“I want a boat prepared. I’ll give a warning to Canada maybe next week that they better pull that thing out or I will set sail doon sa [there in] Canada, ibuhos ko ‘yang basura nila doon (to bring back their trash),” Duterte said.
“I cannot understand why they are making us a dumpsite, and that is not the only case in point. They keep on dumping their trash on us. Well, not this time. I’ll declare a war. We’ll wage a war against Canada. We’ll declare war against them, we can defeat them,” he added.
In 2013, the Philippines found that Chronic Incorporated, a private firm in Ontario, shipped a total of 103 container vans of garbage mislabeled as “recyclable plastic materials” to Manila. The shipment was consigned to Philippine company Chronic Plastics.
The Philippine government has discovered that the 18 inspected containers were consisted of mixed waste such as adult papers, waste paper and other household trash that need to be immediately disinfected. The other 26 container vans of trash has been illegally dumped into a landfill site in Tarlac.
The shipment of Canadian waste was deemed illegal, as provided by the Basel Convention signed by the Philippines and Canada.
The Basel Convention prohibits the trade of toxic and hazardous wastes, unless a country consents to it.
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