Malacañang said Sunday it was up to Congress to speed up legislation on banning single-use plastics, and days after President Rodrigo Duterte floated the idea.
Duterte said he was mulling over a nationwide plastic ban during the 43rd Cabinet meeting on Wednesday in response to environmental problems, even as he recognized that his plan would require legislative action.
“The President has broached that idea. It is for the members of Congress to adopt it, to use their initiative to have that kind of idea, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said.
He made the statement even as Sentor Francis Pangilinan said the ban on the importation, manufacture and use of single-use plastics was an urgent matter and should be done immediately.
“We appeal to the President to certify the bill as urgent. The world needs the ban on single-use plastic,” Pangilinan said over the weekend.
“And as the Philippines is one of the biggest producers of plastic waste, the world will benefit from such a ban.”
At the start of the 18th Congress, Pangilinan filed Senate Bill 40 seeking to phase out single-use plastic products by prohibiting their importation, manufacture and use in food establishments, stores, and markets.
The environmental group Greenpeace has called on the President to certify as urgent the proposed bills that would stop the use of plastic products.
Panelo said it would not be surprising if Duterte did so since he supported the idea of a nationwide plastic ban.
Two measures seeking the prohibition of single-use plastics have been filed by Pangilinan and Senator Cynthia Villar, but these proposals were still pending at the committee level.
Both bills seek to ban food establishments, stores, markets and retailers from issuing single-use plastics.
Single-use plastics include items such as grocery bags, food packaging, films and bags, manufacturing water bottles, straws, stirrers, containers, Styrofoam, cups, sachets and plastic cutlery.
In the House, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. earlier filed House Bill 4724 seeking to ban single-use plastics from all tourist sites and destinations.
Pending the nationwide ban on the use of plastic, Panelo stressed the need for a stricter implementation of Republic Act 9003 or the Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
The law mandates the state to adopt a “systematic, comprehensive and ecological solid waste management program.”
“We have to strictly enforce it, so concerned agencies will be compelled to perform their respective tasks since our ecology is suffering, Panelo said.
Filipinos use nearly 48 million shopping bags daily, 16.5 billion smaller, thinner, and transparent plastic bags yearly, and 60 billion sachets annually, according to the non-government organization Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.
The Philippines is the third biggest source of plastics dumped in the world’s oceans following China and Indonesia, a 2015 report said.