Manila Mayor Isko Moreno declared health emergency in the city due uncollected garbage.

Moreno announced that two new garbage collection agency terminated their operations after the city failed to pay the contractors.

“I opted to declare and request the city council tomorrow, first session day, declare a state of health emergency in the entire city of Manila,” Moreno said.

“For the past so many weeks, we’ve been receiving a lot of complaints and requests from the people of Manila to confront the garbage situation of the city,” he added.

According to Moreno, the two contractors, PhilEco and MetroWaste, stopped their operations in the city due to unsettled payments since January. Also, the former contractor Leonel is still unpaid.

Moreno said around P950 million of payments remain unsettled for the garbage collection services from the past administration.

The mayor said the local government will take over the trash collection in Manila.