Guinevere Constantino: From tragedy to remedy: remediation of the Payatas dumpsite

One of the emblematic events of the year 2000 was the end of the World Series, and we live long enough to know otherwise. It wasn’t the case for the victims of the Payatas tragedy. In the early morning of July, in the year 2000, after a nonstop rain from a typhoon that ravaged the Philippines. The Payatas residents heard a loud rumbling, followed immediately by a destruction. And the world was never the same for them again. The Payatas garbage dump collapsed, killing an estimate of more than 200 people. Residents from below the poverty line that made a living by turning your trash into an income. The garbage site that was once called Promised Land for its residents was quickly filled with stories of tragedy and hopelessness. And now, two decades later, we, emerging professionals, called the opportunity to reimagine the fire at this dump site. With the climate crisis issue in mind, with an objective of a green thriving neighborhood, we formed a group of young and optimistic emerging professionals from the field of landscape architecture, civil engineering and environmental science to address the case of the payatas dump site. It was clear that with this aim, a green urban design will be the only part of the project, but that's where we were mistaken. While the dump site closed in 2010 and the sanitary rental portion closed in 2018 with only remains of its dark past plastic bags poking out of the ground, the site still is still unstable by the city government, where methane emissions and litter discharge are reportedly still occurring. And so, that’s where we also focused on the holistic approach of addressing the site’s problems, by constructing full remediation plans to make the site stable, breathable and livable for its citizens. After this, it coincided with what we have in mind for the urban design, a community based open space where green vision is integrated. We designed a development plan to reimagine the site from its former dump history into an Eco-Park that will be the center of the community’s quality of life. The design also includes an Eco Museum and commemorative wall to pay tributes for the lives lost in the 2000 Payatas tragedy. And most importantly, we included agro industrial facilities, which serves us employment opportunities for the residents who lost their only source of income as a result from the dump’s closure. The site was once tragic and devastating title. now aims to regain the Promised Land title it once received. So what makes the Payatas incident, particularly its prospective invention, a way to address the climate crisis? As what we have seen, it is indeed an important issue that requires substantial attention. But it's more for local one. Well, you see, it is important to remember the climate crisis isn’t just about the environment. It is about how it affects its people when they impoverished being the most vulnerable demographic. We know the climate change affects everyone. But the sad truth is that the detrimental impacts are not felt fairly among people, communities in the poverty line are the most vulnerable because they have those resources to combat these adverse effects. And the even sadder truth is that they are the least contributors to the global warming, yet they are the most affected. In fact, like the people in Payatas, they are even the ones who help us alleviate the environmental issues. Who were purposing the trash and turning it into an income. And yet they will be the first to pay the price for this impending crisis. And so this is how we can pave the way in addressing the climate crisis by remembering the people below the poverty line and making it our mission to prioritize their welfare as well by reframing our field of view of what is paramount and addressing the climate crisis. We can start to see how initiatives and actions in a local setting much like if we had a state, make an impact and a difference in a larger scale. Thank you.