TURNING SEWAGE SLUDGE AND FOOD WASTE INTO BIOGAS FUEL

TURNING SEWAGE SLUDGE AND FOOD WASTE INTO BIOGAS FUEL

Who would have thought that every toilet flush could one day power a bus? Yet that’s exactly what’s happening in Stockholm, Sweden — a city that has figured out how to turn waste into wealth, or more precisely, sewage into fuel. Through a process called anaerobic digestion, Stockholm now converts human waste and discarded food into biomethane, which fuels more than 3,000 buses, garbage trucks, and taxis. Every citizen’s toilet contributes to the clean energy that moves the city — a perfect example of how circular economy principles can work beautifully when guided by vision, science, and strong governance.

Stockholm’s system is both elegant and efficient. Waste from toilets and kitchens is collected and processed in oxygen-free tanks where microbes naturally break it down. The process releases biogas, which is then purified into biomethane — a renewable fuel nearly identical in quality to compressed natural gas (CNG). This biomethane is stored under pressure, pumped through dispensers at bus depots, and used to run Stockholm’s entire public transport fleet — all managed by Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL), the region’s publicly owned transit authority.

What’s even more impressive is that Stockholm’s transformation didn’t happen because of a national government directive. It was a local city initiative — a powerful reminder that sustainability often starts at the local level, not from the top down. The city saw two persistent problems — sewage management and food waste disposal — and solved both while cutting its dependence on fossil fuels. In doing so, it also reduced flooding risks by keeping organic waste out of drainage systems. That’s what I call strategic governance: one solution, multiple benefits.

Now, imagine this in the Philippine context. We have the same ingredients — waste and transport demand — but not yet the will or integration to connect the two. Should this kind of initiative fall under the Department of Energy (DOE) because it’s about fuel? Or the Department of Transportation (DOTr) because it powers mobility? My suggestion: let DOTr lead, since the end users — our buses, tricycles, and jeepneys — fall under its domain. Let DOE support with technical expertise, and let the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) provide the research and innovation backbone. That’s a three-agency synergy that could make things happen faster.

The idea of “flush-to-fuel” might sound futuristic, but it’s already being done in Barcelona, where the Baix Llobregat wastewater plant produces biomethane to fuel city buses, and in San Francisco, where the Public Utilities Commission turns food scraps and sewage into fuel for garbage trucks. All these cities use the same basic setup: high-pressure compressors, CNG-style dispensers, and buses fitted with safe, high-pressure fuel tanks. The technology is mature, safe, and available — all we lack is the local policy and coordination to implement it.

Here’s a thought: why not start small — at the barangay level? Each barangay could build a modular biogas hub, fed by public toilets, market waste, and even animal manure from nearby farms. The output could fuel barangay service vehicles, health center generators, or tricycles. The leftover sludge could be processed into organic fertilizer for local farming or tree planting projects. A single pilot project could demonstrate how waste can literally drive development.

Let’s also look at the potential savings. The Philippines imports over $13 billion worth of oil annually, a big chunk of which goes to transport. Even if 5% of our public transport could shift to biomethane, that’s hundreds of millions of dollars saved each year — and fewer emissions choking our cities. Plus, every liter of fuel we produce from waste keeps our pesos circulating locally instead of sending them overseas.

But beyond economics, this is about resilience. Floods, blackouts, and fuel shortages are all symptoms of a fragile, linear system. Turning waste into energy makes communities more self-sufficient. It gives barangays control over their resources and reduces dependence on volatile fuel markets.

It’s time we see waste not as a problem but as a renewable resource waiting to be tapped. Local governments can take the lead, backed by cooperative enterprises that manage and maintain the systems. Private investors could join through public-private partnerships, while schools and youth groups could handle education and awareness.

The question now is: what’s stopping us? We already have the waste, the transport fleets, the need, and even the technology. What we need is the political will — and perhaps a champion within the government who will say, “Let’s turn every toilet flush into fuel.”

If Sweden, a country with fewer people and colder weather, can make this work, surely the Philippines — blessed with warmth, creativity, and community spirit — can do even better. After all, what have we got to lose if it costs us nothing but our own waste?

Maybe it’s time to stop flushing opportunities down the drain — and start fueling our future with them.

Ramon Ike V. Seneres, www.facebook.com/ike.seneres

iseneres@yahoo.com, senseneres.blogspot.com

09088877282/02-13-2026

LET’S PRODUCE MORE ANTI-SNAKE VENOM

 LET’S PRODUCE MORE ANTI-SNAKE VENOM

Every now and then, we hear of tragic stories — someone bitten by a cobra in a remote area, rushed to a hospital hours away, only to die along the way because no anti-snake venom was available nearby. Just recently, a seven-year-old boy from Davao de Oro died after being bitten several times by a banakon (king cobra). It is a story that keeps repeating itself in our countryside, and yet the solution seems simple enough — produce more antivenom and make it available where people actually need it.

The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) already produces our own Purified Cobra Antivenom (PCAV), a life-saving serum that can neutralize venom from local cobra species. That’s a major achievement. But if PCAV exists, why are so many rural health centers still empty-handed?

At first glance, this could be seen as a distribution problem — the antivenom isn’t getting to the far-flung areas fast enough. But if we look deeper, it’s also a production problem. You can’t distribute what you don’t have enough of.

The Horse in the Room

The good news is that producing PCAV isn’t rocket science. The process begins with horses — yes, horses! These noble creatures are naturally resistant to many snake venoms, including that of the king cobra. When injected with small, safe doses of venom, their immune systems produce antibodies that can neutralize the toxins. These antibodies are then extracted from their blood plasma, purified, and processed into antivenom.

In short, horses save human lives — quietly, selflessly, and literally.

And here’s more good news: we have plenty of horses in the Philippines. The technology is already here, the expertise exists at RITM, and the raw material — horse plasma — is abundant. So what’s missing? Funding, coordination, and political will.

The Bureaucratic Bottleneck

Let’s face it — our health bureaucracy can sometimes be slower than a sedated python. RITM has the capacity and the scientists, but it depends on the Department of Health (DOH) for budget and policy support. DOH, in turn, must convince Congress to allocate sufficient funds for production and nationwide distribution. Somewhere in that chain, urgency seems to get lost.

Senator Raffy Tulfo recently called for legislation requiring all hospitals to maintain a minimum stock of anti-snake venom, following a fatal case in Isabela. But what good is a mandate if there’s no supply to begin with? We can’t legislate antivenom into existence — we must fund it.

If Congress could reallocate even a small portion of the billions spent yearly on flood control projects (many of which, let’s be honest, just vanish like water in the sand), we could easily double RITM’s production capacity.

The Rural Reality

As of now, the antivenom is stocked mainly in large medical centers like the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital in Tagbilaran or Don Emilio del Valle Memorial Hospital in Ubay, Bohol. But in the rural barangays — where farmers, loggers, and children are most likely to encounter snakes — there’s often nothing.

Imagine this: a farmer in Quezon or a boy in Davao de Oro gets bitten. The nearest hospital with PCAV is in Muntinlupa. Even if an ambulance comes, the victim’s fate is often sealed before arrival. We cannot keep letting geography decide who lives and who dies.

What Needs to Be Done

1. Regional Antivenom Labs – Establish at least one processing and storage center per region. Transporting plasma or venom samples to Manila makes no sense when snakebites happen in the provinces.
   
   

2. Barangay Emergency Kits – Equip barangay health centers with first aid kits that include PCAV, along with trained personnel who can administer it quickly.
   
   

3. Community Awareness Programs – Teach residents basic snakebite prevention and response. In most cases, delay — not the bite itself — kills the patient.
   
   

4. Inter-agency Collaboration – Let RITM handle production, DOH handle logistics, and LGUs handle storage and rapid response.
   
   

5. Private Partnerships – Why not engage veterinary pharmaceutical firms, universities, or even horse breeders to help scale up production?
   
   

A Matter of Priorities

If we already have the scientists, the horses, and the technology — what’s holding us back? Sometimes, it feels like lives are being lost not because we lack science, but because we lack urgency.

Snakebites are not rare freak accidents. The World Health Organization classifies them as a neglected tropical disease, with over 80,000 deaths globally every year, mostly in rural Asia and Africa. The Philippines, with its high incidence of cobra bites, is clearly in that danger zone.

Yet despite this, antivenom remains a low-profile budget item — overshadowed by headline projects like roadworks or flyovers. Infrastructure is important, yes, but how many lives does a road save compared to a vial of PCAV administered on time?

The Ultimate Goal

My wish is that no Filipino should ever die just because the nearest health center ran out of antivenom — or never had it in the first place. In fact, we should produce more PCAV than we currently need, so that every region can maintain a safety buffer.

We owe it to our people — and, strangely enough, to our horses — to make that happen.

Let’s not wait for another child to die in his mother’s arms before we act. Let’s produce more anti-snake venom — now, not later.

Ramon Ike V. Seneres, www.facebook.com/ike.seneres

iseneres@yahoo.com, senseneres.blogspot.com

09088877282/02-12-2026

CONVERTING WASTE BANANA TRUNKS INTO COMMERCIAL FIBERS

 CONVERTING WASTE BANANA TRUNKS INTO COMMERCIAL FIBERS

There’s an old saying that goes, “The answer is right under our noses.” It perfectly describes how, for so long, we’ve overlooked one of the most obvious opportunities in Philippine agriculture — the potential to convert banana trunks, which are usually thrown away, into commercial textile fibers.

We Filipinos are not strangers to plant-based fibers. We already have abacá — a close cousin of the banana — which has brought us international recognition as the world’s top producer of what’s often called “Manila hemp.” The Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority (PHILFIDA), under the leadership of Director Ali Atienza, has been promoting abacá fibers for years, even developing fine yarns for weaving and textile production.

So here’s the question: if we can make yarn from abacá trunks, why not from banana trunks too?

The banana plant, like abacá, belongs to the Musa family. After it bears fruit once, the trunk (technically called the pseudostem) dies. Farmers then cut it down, leaving it to rot or be used as compost. But that trunk — rich in long, durable natural fibers — could actually be processed into valuable textile material. Meanwhile, new shoots called suckers emerge from the base and grow into new fruit-bearing stems, ensuring the cycle continues.

From a business perspective, it makes little sense to depend on just one product from a crop that can yield two. For every bunch of bananas harvested, we discard a potential source of income. What if we could change that equation — and give farmers an extra livelihood by extracting fibers from what they currently consider waste?

A Taiwanese example

Interestingly, Taiwan is already showing us how this could work. Nelson Yang, a Taiwanese entrepreneur and founder of Farm to Material in Changhua County, has turned banana pseudostems into a sustainable fiber marketed to the global apparel industry. His company transforms agricultural waste into biodegradable textile material for use in clothes, shoes, and other products — aligning with global sustainability and circular economy goals.

According to reports from Taipei Times and TaiwanPlus, Yang’s innovation combines environmental responsibility with business sense. Instead of letting tons of banana trunks rot, he processes them into high-value fibers that attract international buyers, especially in the eco-friendly fashion market. He’s even been in talks with sneaker manufacturers eager to replace synthetic fabrics with natural alternatives.

This is not science fiction. It’s already happening — just not yet here.

The Philippine opportunity

Imagine if banana growers in Davao, Bukidnon, or Quezon could sell not just their fruits, but also the trunks that used to be thrown away. A typical banana plantation cuts down hundreds of pseudostems every harvest. That means hundreds of kilos of potential fiber per hectare — a new product line waiting to be developed.

Director Atienza has already proven the feasibility of fiber-based industries with abacá. There’s no reason why his agency, with a little budget boost from Congress, cannot spearhead research and development on banana fiber extraction. Small-scale processing plants could be established at the barangay level, run by cooperatives or LGUs. These could use simple decorticating and drying machines powered by solar energy — low-cost, low-tech, and locally managed.

The fibers, once processed, could be sold to local weaving centers or exported to manufacturers of eco-friendly fabrics. They could even be blended with abacá or cotton to make stronger, lighter textiles.

Why it matters

Globally, the fashion industry is under pressure to move away from synthetic materials like polyester, which contribute to microplastic pollution and climate change. The demand for biodegradable fibers is growing — and banana fiber could fill that niche. It’s renewable, sustainable, and part of a circular system that reuses agricultural waste.

For Filipino farmers, this isn’t just an environmental initiative; it’s economic empowerment. By monetizing what they used to throw away, they can double their potential income. It’s the same logic as producing coconut coir from husks or charcoal briquettes from rice hulls — turning “waste” into wealth.

Questions and suggestions

So, what’s stopping us?

• Is it lack of awareness? Many farmers may not know that banana trunks can be processed into something valuable.
  
  

• Is it a lack of technology? Perhaps we need to design affordable fiber-extraction tools suitable for smallholders.
  
  

• Is it a need for policy? Congress could legislate incentives for agricultural waste repurposing, just as it does for renewable energy.
  
  

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and PHILFIDA could jointly develop pilot programs, with funding support from the Department of Agriculture (DA). The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) could help link farmer cooperatives to textile companies and export markets.

The bigger picture

Banana fiber aligns with what many now call “circular design” — using every part of a resource so that nothing goes to waste. It fits perfectly into a sustainable community model where economic activity, environmental care, and cultural revival coexist.

We already have the raw materials. We have the expertise. What we need now is vision — and the political will to turn that vision into a real, working industry.

If Taiwan can market banana fiber to global brands, surely the Philippines — with its much larger banana plantations — can do the same. Let’s stop letting these trunks rot away. Let’s convert them into threads of prosperity.

Bananas give fruit only once per stem — but with the right approach, their value could live on far longer than a single harvest.

Ramon Ike V. Seneres, www.facebook.com/ike.seneres

iseneres@yahoo.com, senseneres.blogspot.com

09088877282/02-11-2026

BREAKTHROUGHS IN CANCER CURE

 BREAKTHROUGHS IN CANCER CURE

Cancer has robbed us of friends, family, and hope. Too many lives cut short while we waited—waited for treatments, approvals, for technologies to arrive on our shores. When research breakthroughs emerge abroad, they tend to trickle in slowly, dragged by regulations, cost negotiations, and, yes, profit motives. But in the case of cancer, delays come at an intolerable cost.

A recent advance in the UK gives us reason to hope and also to demand change. On 30 April 2025, the UK’s medicines regulator (MHRA) approved a new under-the-skin (subcutaneous) injection version of nivolumab (Opdivo), a major immunotherapy drug used in cancer treatment. 

What makes this enormous is that this “super-jab” can be administered in 3-5 minutes instead of the usual 30-60 minute intravenous drip. Patients who currently receive nivolumab through IV infusions every two or four weeks will now have an alternative. 

Even more significant: it works for 15 types of cancer including lung, kidney, bladder, bowel, esophageal, skin, head and neck, liver, and stomach cancers. 

In England alone, some 1,200 patients per month are expected to benefit from this switch. Treatment time saved for patients and clinicians is huge—estimated to be over a year’s worth collectively every single year. That’s hours that patients no longer have to spend hooked to IVs; hospital beds freed; staff time relieved. 

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My thoughts and questions

I rejoice at this breakthrough. For every minute shaved off treatment, there is a moment less of suffering, anxiety, hospital traffic. But I cannot remain unworried—because for many of us far from London, far from Bristol-Myers Squibb’s labs, this remains news more than reality.

1. When will treatments like this reach the Philippines?
   Based on past patterns of medical technology adoption, there is often a lag of 5 years or more before they become available here—if at all. During those years, hundreds or thousands may have died or endured worse quality of life.
   
   

2. Will cost be a barrier?
   In the UK, the agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb ensures the jab comes at no extra cost to the NHS. But that does not guarantee that our government hospitals, our procurement systems, our insurance schemes will have the budgets, trained staff, and supply chains necessary.
   
   

3. Zero Balance Billing & Equity
   For many Filipinos, even small out-of-pocket expenses kill the dream of cure. This treatment, like many others, must be included under free or heavily subsidised healthcare—zero balance billing, government hospitals, PhilHealth, etc. Without that, only the rich benefit.
   
   

4. Local production and regulation
   Why not begin now to negotiate licensing, maybe even local manufacturing, for subcutaneous nivolumab or equivalent immunotherapy drugs? Our DOH (Department of Health) and DOST (Department of Science and Technology) could collaborate on biotech initiatives, maybe with foreign partners.
   
   

5. Congress and budget priorities
   If some flood control, infrastructure, or other large budget items are still overblown or delayed, maybe we can shift some of that toward cancer care. Prevention, early detection, availability of cutting-edge medicines—that can save far more lives than some recurring expenses.
   
   

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What the data tells us

• The new formulation of nivolumab is co-formulated with recombinant human hyaluronidase (rHuPH20). This helps absorption when given under the skin, enabling the fast 3-5 minute injection.
  
  

• The approval by MHRA covers use as:
  
  

• Monotherapy (nivolumab alone)
  
  

• Maintenance following combination therapy in certain cancers
  
  

• Combination with other treatments (chemotherapy or other agents) in solid tumours.
  
  

• The side effect profile appears comparable to the IV form; safety, pharmacokinetics (drug behavior in the body), and tumour response are similar.
  
  

• From a systems perspective, the NHS expects savings of 1,000 hours per month of clinical and nursing time, increased availability of day-unit cancer capacity, and overall more efficient cancer care.
  
  

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What must be done here at home

• DOH should immediately evaluate whether the newly approved subcutaneous nivolumab is approved by other major regulators (FDA, EMA, WHO), and whether importation/licensing is feasible.
  
  

• DFA (Foreign Affairs) or the Philippine Government should negotiate with UK/BMS to secure licensing, transfer, or at least early access agreements.
  
  

• Congress should look at health priority allocation: Are there existing funds that could be reallocated (without sacrificing essential needs) toward cancer treatment access?
  
  

• Local research must be supported—not just to replicate what others are doing, but to adapt treatments to our patient population (genetic differences, comorbidities, healthcare infrastructure).
  
  

• Public awareness and early detection cannot be neglected even in the face of new cures. The best medicine in the world still cannot help a cancer caught too late.
  
  

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In sum, the NHS’ rollout of the 5-minute nivolumab jab for 15 cancers is nothing less than historic. It shows what medical science is capable of, and what healthcare policy should aspire to: fast, equitable access, not just to the privileged but to all.

I call on our officials, our hospitals, our legislators, and citizens: do not let this be just yet another “foreign miracle.” Let’s make it ours. Let’s move fast. Because behind every delay is a person who could have lived.

Ramon Ike V. Seneres, www.facebook.com/ike.seneres

iseneres@yahoo.com, senseneres.blogspot.com

09088877282/02-10-2026