Dumaguete City’s Central Materials Recovery Facility in Barangay Candau-ay has gone from a nationally recognized model to an unprocessed waste pile in a little over four years. Here is the documented sequence.
May 2021: the contract
The city government signs a ₱21.9-million contract with Suki Trading Corporation, headed by Victoriano B. Ocon, for one AWS-EPCD pyrolysis-gasification unit with pollution control, two sorting conveyors with scrubbers, shredders, a plastic densifier, glass and food-waste pulverizers, a mortar mixer, a hollow block machine, and rotary composters. The city describes the unit as a Japanese-designed, Indonesian-built system carrying a DOST Environmental Technology Verification.
March 2022: the commendation
EMB-DENR Director William Cuñado inaugurates the facility, calls it the first income-generating MRF in the country at about ₱500,000 a month, and recommends it as a National Ecological Center training site. The unit runs 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week, from around March 2022.
October 2024 to February 2025: the monitoring
War on Waste Negros Oriental, with GAIA, has 17 volunteers wear seven AirBeam3 portable sensors for nine to ten days each in Candau-ay, Camanjac, and Balugo. A remote control site is monitored for three days. Two pairs of stationary sensors upwind and downwind of the stack yield six usable wind-aligned periods.
June 12 to July 1, 2025: the report
The groups date their report June 12 and launch it July 1 at Bethel Guesthouse, calling for immediate closure of the unit. The report is not peer-reviewed and is measured against WHO guidelines, not the Philippine ambient standard.
July 8 to 14, 2025: the DENR notices
At the July 8 council session, it emerges that DENR-EMB had invited the city to a technical conference on seven ECC items: unfiled monitoring reports, no accredited hazardous-waste facility agreement, unsegregated waste dumping, poor housekeeping, no wastewater discharge permit, a second facility built without an ECC amendment, and no hazardous waste generator registration for busted lamps. A July 14 letter from DENR-7 Regional Director Ma. Victoria Abrera notes the pyrolysis unit, plastic extruder, and densifier lack a permit to operate, proposes a ₱19,500 fine, and gives the city 60 days to secure the permit.
July 17, 2025: Memorandum Order No. 2
Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria orders the pyrolysis unit, extruder, and densifier stopped until the permit is secured. The 60-day window closes in mid-September. No permit application has been publicly reported since.
June to November 2025: Laoag
Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, test-runs a ₱45-million DOST-supported pyrolysis plant in June and formally launches it in November. DOST calls it a benchmark facility and the technology Filipino-invented.
July to September 2026: the national push
The President asks Congress in his SONA to amend RA 9003 to allow waste-to-energy, calls it the only solution on August 12, and the DOE raises its WTE auction target to 400 MW. On September 3, the President awards Vic Metal Fabrication and Environmental Services, Inc., Ocon’s company, the Presidential Filipinnovation Award for its gasification process. The same day, EMB-7 confirms it has no air quality station covering Negros Oriental as Kalimantan haze reaches the province.
Today
The Central MRF holds unprocessed mixed waste. Dumaguete has no sanitary landfill 25 years after RA 9003 required one. Zero-waste programs operate in four of 30 barangays.
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