Mount Onion

by Barbara Denisse Gutierrez, OD Staffer

When clean, misty air is replaced by the rotten stench of garbage, it is no longer a sanctuary—it is now a dump.

When the flourishing greenery highlighting the trees' crowns loses the golden leaves it once harbored, it is no longer a forest—it is now a desert.

When the very place you once called home is soiled with the remnants of a "temporary" trash waterfall, it is no longer a home. It is left as something no better than a mountain of rotten onions.

Each layer unravels not only the pile after pile of dump that makes the eyes weep of its odor, but the hints of what it was before. The buildup of what was supposed to be momentarily now burrowed into the depths of grains of sand, softening the ground beneath its feet till it has creeped into the ground.

The foul smell of each pile mixed with another is enough to chase anyone away until they can breathe fresh air again, including the Aetas of Subic, Zambales. For years, Erlinda and her family have suffered under its grayish hues while awaiting a promise that may never come—the promise for the stench to disappear, and for their lives to return to what they were before the layers accumulated. But that dream seems higher than the mountain of filth itself.

Layers separate one’s outer self from what lies within, a phrase often echoed by most.

Consider an onion, with each layer of skin symbolizing a layer of reasoning. Take the path forged by the local officials as they took over the indigenous lands of the Aetas. An act framed as a service, as transparent as a thinly peeled skin, yet masking something more than eyes can see.

In 2019, the garbage trucks soon emerged and started dumping their heavy loads into the fertile lands of the Aetas, throwing empty promises their way as they continue to fill the land and its path with more junk.

The faint, foul smell had only started to emerge.

As if nobody resided in those places, the officials defended their case, saying the area was isolated despite the fact that indigenous groups, specifically Aetas, resided there.

“Hindi namin alam... na may community doon sa area. Kasi kung merong community, hindi namin tinuloy doon," the Officer-in-Charge of the Subic Municipal

Environment and Natural Resources Office (MENRO) claimed. Yet official government portals state otherwise as the maps clearly show the dumpsite sat squarely inside recognized ancestral domain.

Despite attempts to cover up the truth, the thin, transparent skin of official excuses gave them away.

You cannot hide a stench that reaches into people's homes, or ignore dirty runoff seeping into the streams they drink from.

"Huwag naman po sana nilang ginanon itong bundok na ito," Erlinda appealed.

In January 2022, the DENR ordered the local government to close the dumpsite for violating the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act. Yet, it took until March 2026 for operations to fully cease.

Finally, the layers stopped piling up. Now, all that remains is to wait for the rot to be cleared and for officials to be held accountable—tasks far easier said than done. Something that is easier said than done. As the Cease-and-desist from the DENR that requires the immediate rehabiliation of the area in 15 days remains a distant plan on paper.

Officials estimate recovery will cost 78 million pesos, yet their primary proposal is merely to bury the rot beneath piles of dirt.

To this day, the mountain of onions sits undisturbed, uneven, decaying, and suffocating the land beneath it.

Until the rot is truly uprooted, no fresh air will reach these hills, no green roots will flourish, and no amount of dirt can hide the stench of a promise left to decay.

But maybe one day the rotten stench of trash will return to its clear mists of air, the bald trees will regrow its roots to flourish, and the heavy flow of garbage will return to heavy flows of clean water. But that day is yet to come to Erlinda, her family, and their community.

As the ground continues to feed off its bitter new skin.#