Naz, Antonia Corinthia C and Mario Tuscan N. Naz. 2006. Modeling ...

d. The funding gap could be addressed by increasing the revenues from user fees,
by decreasing costs and by looking beyond LGU resources. Other sources of revenue
accruable to the municipality such as mining revenues, in the case of Tuba, are currently
being studied, as a means to support ECOSWAM services. Other external sources of
funds include those from the provincial government, the congressman’s Countryside
Development Fund and private sector contributions. Furthermore, as the LGU with a
ready site for a sanitary landfill (SLF), Tuba would be able to take the lead in
organizing a cluster with neighboring LGUs (that are also in a dilemma looking for a
disposal site) in order to jointly finance the construction, maintenance and operations of
a common SLF. As it could be the host of the SLF, Tuba will have to set its terms and
conditions regarding the development, management and use of the disposal site. If Tuba
can finance the construction of a SLF with its own resources or obtain external funding
such as a loan for this, then it can recover its costs by collecting user fees from the
LGUs that use the SLF.
e. There is also a need for the national government, particularly the inter-sectoral
National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC), headed by the Department
of Environment and Natural Resources to revisit RA 9003. As gleaned from this study,
many LGUs find it hard to comply, financially and technically with the ambitious
targets set by RA 9003. In particular, the commission needs to review the provisions on
the planning and programming policy for SWM, clustering of common
SWM problems, establishment and operations of sanitary landfills, the financing of
solid waste management and cost recovery mechanisms. There is a need for more
detailed guidelines for clustering of LGUs for ECOSWAM services as well as the need
to set up a pilot or model cluster that could be replicated in other LGUs. Piloting the
cluster concept for SWM in the LGUs of Baguio-La-Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba
(BLIST), could provide a challenging, but worthwhile project for the commission to
undertake or endorse.
f. The NSWMC and the Investment Coordinating Committee of the National
Economic and Development Authority also need to review laws regarding cost-sharing
mechanisms between the national and local governments for environmental and social
projects, and enable solid waste management projects of LGUs to be eligible to receive
support such as matching grants from the national government.
g. Areas for future research using CM in solid waste management could include:
(i) considering the distance from the community to the final disposal site as a
determinant of the WTP for ECOSWAM services and (ii) differential pricing or price
discrimination among areas or villages in terms of their attributes, e.g., income class,
location and accessibility.
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