(RPG-010) “PLAY OF WORDS IN GOVERNANCE”

Words are just words as the saying goes, but words can mean life or death for people in the marginalized sectors who are the potential victims of verbal misunderstandings.

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A landfill is not supposed to be a dumpsite, and vice-versa, and there is supposed to be nothing in between, not even the so-called “managed dumpsites”.

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Poverty reduction is not the same as poverty alleviation, and these two words are not supposed to be inter-changeable. Moreover, the delivery of public services is supposed to be a normal function of government, and therefore, public services should not be passed off as poverty alleviation.

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In a manner of speaking, a real sanitary landfill could actually be called a “managed dumpsite” because garbage is dumped in these facilities, but the term should not be confused with the ordinary dumpsites where dumping is “managed” by controlling the garbage inflow.

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As if caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, our local government units (LGUs) are finding it difficult to enforce waste segregation laws on one hand, and the construction of real sanitary landfills on the other hand. If only one or the other could be realized, our solid waste problems would not be that grave.

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Going direct to the point, poverty reduction is no other than actually reducing the number of people who fall below the poverty line. There is no way around this, and no amount of poverty alleviation would cover this up.

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For how long are we going to live with the ever increasing rate of poverty and the ever increasing volume of garbage? For as long as our government officials would not know the difference between landfills and dumpsites on one hand, and the difference between poverty reduction and poverty alleviation on the other hand.