Abstract:

Continuing growth trends in urban population, motor vehicle use, and industrial activities have worsened air pollution in major city centres of the Philippines. Due to air pollution, urban health-related cost in Metro Manila, Davao, Cebu and Baguio has been estimated to be around US$430 million per annum with children and poor jeepney (a diesel-powered major mode of public transport) drivers mainly affected. In response, the Philippines enacted the Clean Air Act 1999 (CAA) to provide a comprehensive air pollution control policy in the country, which essentially adopted an ambient air quality and emission-based monitoring and regulatory framework. Other major policy features of the CAA include the conversion of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) from a staff to a line bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), introduction of market-based approaches, and the ban on incineration. With such key policy shifts, the CAA has been expected to improve air quality particularly in urban centres and generally around the country. However, the CAA has plodded and suffered enforcement difficulties more than five years into its implementation. So far, a substantial number of policy and implementation mandates enshrined in the law remain undelivered. Lack of institutional capacity, public and private investments, and alternative technologies have loomed large in the horizon. These have resulted to a series of telling gaps in the implementation of the CAA. Additionally, the legislation of stringent uniform ambient quality and emission standards and the imposition of compliance deadlines have only aggravated the implementation deficits. Since the CAA is subject to joint congressional review, the policy and regulatory strategies need to be redefined to fit into the political, socio-cultural, and economic realities in the country.

Presentation: http://www.cleanairnet.org/baq2006/1757/docs/SW24_2.ppt