A criminal complaint is being prepared by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources against the registered owner of the vehicle that authorities say carried mixed waste to the front of the agency’s Davao Region headquarters, even as the department presses Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte to account for the dumping that has unfolded at the site.
The legal track and the demand for an explanation mark a sharper turn in a dispute that began as a quarrel over uncollected refuse and has since drawn in Malacañang and the interior department. DENR-Davao has said it already pinpointed the vehicles and people behind the unauthorized disposal outside its Lanang compound, and it is anchoring its planned action on Section 48 of Republic Act 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, which bars littering and illegal dumping and carries penalties of fines, imprisonment, or both.
The waste began appearing at the office after Duterte, on June 4, named the area in front of the regional office as an additional collection point. He framed the move as a way to force agency personnel to confront the scale of the problem. “To manage waste collection moving forward, we have identified additional collection points, including one in front of the DENR XI office, so they can personally appreciate the volume of garbage that accumulates when an essential public service is halted indefinitely,” the mayor said.
That order followed the suspension of the New Carmen Sanitary Landfill, which the department halted on May 22 after a trash slide two days earlier buried homes and killed two residents, with one person still missing in the days that followed. The mayor has repeatedly tied the city’s collection backlog to that closure, arguing that nearly two million residents and roughly 750 tons of daily waste are caught in the fallout. “We are complying with all requirements. We only hope that decisions affecting around 750 tons of waste daily and nearly two million Dabawenyos are guided not only by regulations, but also by practical realities and common sense,” Duterte said.
The Environmental Management Bureau, which enforces the solid waste law, has rejected the tactic outright. Its director, Michael Drake Matias, said the practice runs counter to the very framework the agency is meant to uphold. “Dumping trash in front of government offices is not only unlawful, it undermines the very principles of ecological solid waste management. Our focus must remain on protecting lives, rehabilitating the landfill, and ensuring compliance with environmental standards,” he said.
In presenting its case for the suspension, the department has maintained that halting landfill operations was needed to secure search-and-retrieval work, allow geotechnical assessment, and shield nearby communities from further danger. It has also pointed to alternatives floated to the city government, including coordination with neighboring towns, a residual-waste arrangement with Holcim Geocycle, and a possible temporary disposal area within the suspended facility itself.
The interior department has separately committed to examining whether city officials, the mayor included, may be administratively liable. Palace press officer Claire Castro said Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla had pledged a thorough inquiry into whether negligence or breaches of environmental law occurred, while declining to predict its outcome. Because Davao is a highly urbanized city, any administrative case against Duterte would fall to the Office of the President under the Local Government Code, with penalties that could range from reprimand to removal, alongside the possibility of preventive suspension during proceedings.
Duterte has held that the landfill could safely reopen, citing the city’s own assessment and the relocation of families living near the site. “The people living around the landfill have already been evacuated. The threat to human life has been addressed,” he said, contending that corrective work could proceed without a full shutdown.
