MANILA, Philippines – As mountains of garbage aggravate the dreary waterworld that is flood-prone Malabon, waste workers strive to retrieve the sinking city from surging floods and create more liveable communities.
Whenever the rain comes, Malabon sinks. This is the reality for most residents of the city, and it gets more severe during high tide and the rainy season.
Malabon, a densely populated city, is a natural catch basin of its neighboring cities because of its low-lying topography. It is also bound by the Tullahan River, on which nearby communities depend for fishing and agricultural work.
A 2015 Climate and Development Knowledge Network report revealed that the Tullahan River became narrower and weaker over the years, triggering it to overflow during storms and high tide. This causes severe flooding in Malabon and nearby cities such as Caloocan, Navotas, and Valenzuela.
When residents hear of an upcoming storm, it becomes an unspoken custom to start lifting their cabinets, sofas, and themselves last due to the incoming murky floods.
However, natural causes weren’t the only problem. Flooding has become even more rampant due to improper waste management, according to a Malabon Partners for Resilience report. This includes lax garbage collection systems, disposal of toxic chemicals, and clogged drainages due to careless trash dumping.
This pushed the Malabon-Navotas Waste Workers’ Association (MaNaWWA) to organize in November 2021 as “waste warriors” and promote zero-waste cities by training trash workers from their barangays to mitigate the effects of flooding in their communities.
All 21 barangays in Malabon are covered by MaNaWWA’s services, with 328 employees logged in 2023. Most are street sweepers, drivers of waste collection trucks, shovellers, dispatchers, canal decloggers, waste pickers, monitoring officers, and more.
The saviors of the submerging city
“Noon pa man ay lagi nang binabaha ang Malabon at Navotas, ngunit dahil sa pagtuturo namin ng tamang pagtatapon, kahit papaano ay nakatulong nang malaki ito sa amin,” 65-year-old Wilhelmina Magdaluyo, the president of MaNaWWA, said.
(Even before, Malabon and Navotas have always experienced flooding, but when we started teaching proper garbage disposal, it helped our community immensely.)
In 2021, MaNaWWA emerged from a partnership with the Mother Earth Foundation (MEF), a women-led organization that helps communities implement zero-waste programs.
Magdaluyo said MaNaWWA members advocate for environmental justice through information education campaigns (IECs), where they do house-to-house visits to teach residents how to segregate trash to prevent residual wastes from polluting the city.
In Barangay Tañong, Malabon City, three waste workers collect garbage daily from 4,000 households. This includes Eleodora Española, a 64-year-old MaNaWWA trash collector since 2021.
Española recalled that when Malabon had no waste management programs in 2019, floodwaters in the city were always waist-deep, and even dead animals floated around. Now, floods usually reach gutter-to-knee-level during high tide or storms.
Other types of waste, such as broken tires, tiles, and toilet bowls, are also thrown by residents in driveways and sidewalks.
“Noong araw, noong hindi pa dumating ang MaNaWWA, is napakagulo, basura is number one. Nung may MaNaWWA na po, natuto na ‘yung mga tao,” Española said.
(Back in the day, when there was no MaNaWWA, it was messy; trash was number one. When MaNaWWA came, people started to learn.)
In June 2021, Magdaluyo immediately registered MaNaWWA with the Department of Labor and Employment so that employees could receive benefits, work training, and livelihood opportunities from the government.
To end the cycle of excessive flooding, MaNaWWA then collaborated with their local governments to act as an eco-police. As a recognized association, they are given the power to set trash collection schedules, implement the “no segregation, no collection” policy, and sanction residents who disobey regulations through community service.
They also conduct mangrove tree planting to help maintain cleanliness and avoid flooding in Camanava rivers. This project is one of MaNaWWA’s volunteer initiatives in collaboration with their local government and barangays.
According to Magdaluyo, some of the mangrove trees they planted did not grow fully due to calamities that hit Malabon. However, with the help of Malabon government personnel, they maintained the growth of mangrove trees to ensure their sustainability in the long run.
Aside from waste reduction, Magdaluyo’s goal is to also provide MaNaWWA employees a source of extra income from utilizing recyclables — may it be through urban gardening and composting using kitchen waste and recyclables, or through rug-making and production from used tarpaulins and discarded clothes.
“Ang [mapataas] ang antas ng kanilang pamumuhay, ang itaas ang morale ng mga waste workers at magkaroon ng pagkakataong mamuhay ng disente at makatao. Makapag-aral ang kanilang mga anak, makakuha ng mga health benefit at livelihood program, na isa sa mga pinupursigi naming mapalawak,” she said.
(To improve the quality of their life, to lift their morale as waste workers, and to give them a chance to attain decent and humane living conditions. We also want to ensure that their children can study and receive health benefits and livelihood programs, which we want to expand.)
Lack of government support
Highlighting the hazards in waste work, MEF program officer Shan Matreo said most trash workers in the Philippines deal with “no work, no pay,” which means every time they get sick, they don’t have any source of income to get treated.
Magdaluyo cited that one of their volunteers died from leptospirosis, while at least two front liners tested positive for COVID-19 during the pandemic due to lack of personal protective equipment.
More so, since Española is a volunteer, her daily eight hours of work collecting garbage only amount to roughly P200 weekly, which she earns from selling recyclable trash.
“Wala pong kasapatan talaga…. Hindi po talaga kami sinuportahan [ng gobyerno],” Española said.
(It’s never enough. The government doesn’t support us.)
The Malabon local government acknowledges MaNaWWA by connecting them to government agencies like the Department of Science and Technology, which recently donated bioreactors for their composting efforts. However, the critical players in MaNaWWA’s continuing environmental work are non-government organizations supporting them financially and operationally.
Meanwhile, some members like Española can only volunteer because they have a formal job with their barangay.
“Hindi po kami sumasahod ng minimum wage, normally halos lahat ng waste workers ay maliit lamang ang kinikita,” Magdaluyo said.
(We are not minimum wage earners. Typically, almost all waste workers earn so little.)
For Española, despite the lack of compensation, she does volunteer work because she feels “happy to help” her community.
Given these challenges, Matreo said there was a need to enact the Magna Carta for Waste Workers Bill, which the Philippine National Waste Workers Alliance (PNWWA) drafted in February 2024 after consultation with Senator Loren Legarda.
In response to PNWWA’s demands, Legarda filed the Magna Carta for Waste Workers Bill on April 17. The bill remains pending at the committee level.
“Maganda po kung ganoon ang iimplementahan nila para sa amin, kasi maipapamahagi po namin ‘yan di lang sa sarili naming pamilya, [kung ‘di] sa buong barangay po namin at komunidad,” Española said.
(It’s good if they implement this for us because we can share it not only with our families but also with our barangay and community.)
The Magna Carta aims to safeguard waste workers’ rights since they are marginalized due to the lack of a labor code in waste management work. This will help them transition to a formal employment system that includes occupational health and safety standards, proper wages, adequate access to medical support, and active training.
Generally, there were efforts at the barangay level to ‘discipline’ communities to sort out their waste and connect their efforts with local government. For instance, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority recently launched the Road to Zero Waste Summit on November 5, which was supported by several government agencies including Malabon City Mayor Jeannie Sandoval. The summit’s goal was to introduce best practices of the private sector in solid waste management and encourage the public to repurpose waste in their localities. However, it’s still unclear how these best practices will be integrated into actual policies that will lead to a larger garbage management plan in Metro Manila, including Malabon.
Call for support
Magdaluyo said waste workers used to receive belittling looks from people due to the stereotype that they were “mere basureros.” Since residents witnessed MaNaWWA’s role in revitalizing Malabon’s flood-prone communities, they are now well-respected.
“Kaya ‘yun, maipagmamalaki ko na natutuwa rin ang mga tao sa akin.” Española said.
(I can now boast that people are happy with what I do.)
While it is important to dignify their work as community heroes, Magdaluyo encouraged people to support waste workers not only by valuing their work but also by sustaining their initiatives through donations since they don’t receive stable funding from their local government.
“Pag may dumadating na kalamidad dito sa amin, na wawash-out kami (When a calamity hits our area, we get washed out),” Magdaluyo said. Constant support is needed to rebuild MaNaWWA, redo destroyed urban gardens, and repeat community IECs to ensure no polluting habits would linger.
“‘Pag sama-sama kaya natin…nang sa ganoon, hindi lang si Malabon, Navotas. Kailangan natin ay buong mundo, hindi lang Pilipinas na kailangan magkaisa tungkol sa basura [at] climate change,” Magdaluyo said.
(We can do this if we’re together so that it’s not just Malabon and Navotas. We need the entire world, not only the Philippines, to unite about garbage problems and climate change.) – Rappler.com
Micah Pascua is a Rappler volunteer from the University of Santo Tomas. A third-year Bachelor of Arts in Journalism student, she served as a news writer for ‘The Flame,’ the official student publication of UST’s Faculty of Arts and Letters.