Manila's mayor returns to office to face mountains of trash

Straits Times

04-07-2025

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Manila Mayor Francisco Domagoso declared a state of public health emergency amid piles of uncollected rubbish across his city.
MANILA – Mr Francisco Domagoso returned to office as mayor of Manila, the Philippines, on June 30 to the news that the companies that collect the city's garbage were ending their services that day, citing unpaid bills.
Weeks before, piles of garbage had started taking over the city, the Philippine capital.
In some areas, roads became impassable for cars. Mountains of refuse lined crowded commercial areas, as well as the wide avenues leading to city hall and the country's Supreme Court. Trash bags and discarded crates floated down streets flooded by the monsoon rains.
Litter is a fact of life in Manila, where grand colonial buildings are cramped by modern high-rises and dense shanty towns. But for weeks, the smell of rot has grown inescapable for nearly 2 million residents as uncollected waste stewed in the humid South-east Asian weather.
'It hurts the eyes, it hurts the nose, and it hurts public health,' Mr Domagoso said, speaking on a livestream on June 30, where he asked residents to store garbage in their homes until collection returned to normal.
He declared a state of emergency in the city the next day.
The mayor, a former actor known as Isko Moreno, worked as a garbage collector before beginning his acting career.
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In a speech to the City Council on July 1, Mr Domagoso blamed the government of the previous mayor, Dr Honey Lacuna, for leaving the city in debt to the garbage collectors.
Dr Lacuna did not respond to requests for comment.
Trash collection and other public services tend to suffer when cities in metropolitan Manila change hands, a Philippine political observer said.
'In a way, this is a usual thing for transitions, so it feels like it's being used for political purposes by both sides,' said Mr Tony La Vina, director of the Klima Centre at the Manila Observatory, an environmental research centre.
The two private companies that collect garbage for the city said in letters that they were ending their services.
In the letters, which the mayor read on the livestream, they said they had begun working for the city in February and had not been paid since. Residents began complaining about trash on social media in mid-June.
The city's unpaid bills were the equivalent of nearly US$17 million (S$22 million), Mr Domagoso said, an amount that was a fraction of the city's debt for service contracts, infrastructure projects and social benefits.
'The capital of the country is already in the financial ICU,' Mr Domagoso said in the speech.
The mayor said he would investigate why the city's coffers were in dire straits.
'If they're in debt, it's completely unnecessary because it's one of the top five richest cities in the Philippines,' Mr La Vina said.
Mr Domagoso leveraged his acting fame and clean-cut image to first become mayor of Manila in 2019, promising to clean up the densely populated capital. He set his sights on national office and
ran for president in 2022 , finishing in fourth place.
He won handily in the mayoral election against Dr Lacuna in May.
Dr Lacuna had served as vice-mayor during Mr Domagoso's first term, and the two were allies until Mr Domagoso decided to return to Manila.
On June 30, a new contractor worked through the night to pick up trash, free of charge as a favour to Mr Domagoso, he told local media, and water trucks followed the garbage collectors, hosing down the streets.
On July 4, he posted photos of cars and motorcycles running unencumbered on two major thoroughfares finally clear of waste. NYTIMES