Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu has given the green light to hire 2,000 estero rangers who shall help local government units within and near Manila Bay to address indiscriminate waste disposal and improve garbage collection.
Cimatu recently met with the agency’s senior officials and assigned them as river commanders to oversee rehabilitation activities under the Battle for Manila Bay program.
“We would like to impress upon the public that we really need to overhaul the disposal system in Metro Manila, make it efficient and for the public to stop dumping trash into our waterways,” he said.
The DENR chief is the head of the inter-agency Manila Bay Task Force.
According to Cimatu, two estero rangers per barangay would be initially deployed to 711 barangays where there are alleys traversed by esteros and not reached by garbage trucks.
He said these alleys are mostly populated by informal settler families. There are at least 203 creeks and waterways traversing the 711 barangays.
He gave a directive to look into the possibility of increasing the number of estero rangers to 2,000, so that four may be deployed to each barangay.
The estero rangers are to be endorsed by their barangay officials in coordination with the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Under the contract, an estero ranger gets a monthly salary of P8,500 for a five-day work week schedule, and is tasked to conduct removal of garbage from esteros fitted with trash traps and house-to-house garbage collection in selected alleys for transfer and storage at pickup points accessible to garbage trucks.
The estero rangers will be commissioned on Nov. 15 at the DENR central office grounds in Quezon City.