Text and Photos by HENRY EMPEÑO |

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — Goodbye and good riddance.

The 69 garbage-laden shipping containers temporarily stored in the Subic Bay Freeport, including two that were recently transferred from the Port of Manila, finally sailed out of here early Friday morning to be returned to their sender in Canada.

The containerized wastes were loaded onto the MV Bavaria, a Liberian-flagged cargo carrier that arrived here Thursday afternoon.

Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman Wilma T. Eisma, who briefed mediamen on the loading procedure, said the re-exportation of the Canadian trash was treated here “like any other commercial shipment” and with the ship offloading and loading other cargoes at the port.

Loading of the 69 container vans began at 9:00 p.m. on Thursday and was completed more than five hours later at 3:19 a.m. on Friday, with a one-hour break at midnight.

SBMA deputy administrator for port operations Rani Cruz said that 127 other commercial containers were loaded thereafter until 6:30 a.m. before MV Bavaria finally left port at 7:22 a.m.

Eisma said the vessel will make a stopover at the Kaohsiung port in Taiwan to unload and load other cargoes before heading for its final destination, the port of Vancouver.

MV Bavaria will reach Canada after 22 days, port officials here said.

????????????????????????????????????

PHOTOS:  The Liberian-flagged cargo ship MV Bavaria leaves Subic port on May 31 after loading 69 container vans of garbage that are being re-exported to Canada. 

The re-exportation of what were originally declared by the shipper as “plastic scraps” came 15 days after the Philippines recalled its ambassador and consuls to Canada over the latter’s failure to take back the garbage-filled vans that were brought to the Philippines between 2013 and 2014.

The 69 re-exported containers were part of a total of 103 container vans exported to the Philippines by Chronic Inc. (Canada) and consigned to three local companies: Chronic Inc., Chronic Plastics, and Live Green Enterprise.

According to the Bureau of Customs, which took custody of the containers following the discovery of the wastes inside, 34 container vans were transferred to the Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. in Pampanga for disposal, while two remained at the Manila International Container Port (MICP).

The rest were transferred to the New Container Terminal here in Subic for eventual repatriation.

The re-exportation is apparently being funded by the Canadian government, which had committed to ship back the garbage from the Philippines.

A re-exportation order issued last May 7 by MICP District Collector Erastus Sandino Austria quoted Canadian officials as saying that Canada is “prepared to cover the cost of, and make the necessary arrangements to being the waste materials contained in the subject 69 containers.”

The re-exportation of waste materials to its country of origin, Austria said, “is legally anchored” under Section 1145 of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, which allows such procedure “if goods are found to be injurious to public health.”

To facilitate the re-export, ownership over the subject shipment is ceded to the Canadian government, “who shall oversee and ensure that the same are returned to the country of origin, Canada, with dispatch,” the May 7 order also indicated.

The removal of the Canadian trash here was warmly applauded by the Subic Freeport community, with SBMA’s Eisma describing the pullout as “one proud moment for all Filipinos.”

“We thank President Rodrigo Duterte for his decisive action that brought about a satisfactory conclusion to this sordid chapter in our history,” Eisma added.