A 15-hectare government-owned sanitary landfill in Cebu City has been ordered permanently closed by the Supreme Court (SC) as the high court sustained a closure order by the Court of Appeals (CA) in December 2016.

The high court denied Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s plea for a reversal of the appellate court’s December 15, 2016 decision granting the privilege of the writ of kalikasan sought by City Councilor Joel Garganera on the Inayawan landfill, and the closure order issued by the CA on March 14, 2017.

The writ provides protection of one's constitutional right to a healthy environment.

The 13-page decision penned by Associate Justice Noel Tijam directed the city government “to permanently cease and desist from dumping or disposing of garbage or solid waste at the Inayawan landfill and to continue to rehabilitate the same.”

“The continued operation of the Inayawan landfill poses a serious and pressing danger to the environment that could result in injurious consequences to the health and lives of the nearby residents,” the high court said.

Inayawan was spilling garbage beyond capacity after close to two decades of being operational. Highly urbanized Cebu City, the ‘Queen City of the South,’ produces some 600,000 tons of garbage per day.

The environment department’s Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) found serious violations in the operation of the landfill, including the leakage of contaminated liquid to the Cebu Strait.

The health department recommended its closure after assessing that it was no longer feasible to rehabilitate the facility.