The Klarex Ultimatum

FOURTEEN days.

That’s how long Mayor Rolando ‘Klarex’ Uy has given his newly minted Task Force Basura-Special Operations to clean up the city’s garbage nightmare.

Two weeks to end what has taken months — maybe years — of political indifference, contractor confusion, and civic apathy to pile up.

If Robert Ludlum ever wrote about local governance, this would be The Klarex Ultimatum: a ticking clock, a city on the brink, and a hero mayor finally taking the wheel of a garbage truck at dawn.

For weeks, Kagay-an has been drowning under its own debris. Trash has taken over sidewalks like unwanted street art — an exhibition of everything we throw away, including accountability.

Residents dodge garbage bags like landmines, while tourists get a crash course in the city’s “odor of governance.”

The Department of Tourism may soon have to add “mountainous waste formations” to its list of attractions.

Then came Mayor Uy, sleeves rolled up, vowing to command the cleanup himself.

Enter Task Force Basura: a coalition of Clenro, Standard Systems, and every agency that can still stomach the smell of public service.

Garbage Mess

Their mission — should they choose to accept it — is to make the garbage disappear, or at least make it less Instagrammable, in 14 days.

It sounds simple. Collect garbage. Clear roads. Deploy trucks. But in Kagay-an, simplicity is often buried under layers of bureaucracy thicker than landfill soil.

Previous efforts have come and gone, like street sweepers after a fiesta.

Still, there’s something refreshingly bold about the mayor’s timeline. It’s part dare, part declaration, part “I’ve-had-enough.”

The same energy you see in someone who finally decides to clean their house — not because of pride, but because even the cockroaches are starting to complain.

The question is whether this will be a cleanup or just another political detox.

Fourteen days is not just a deadline; it’s a test of will. Garbage, after all, is not just physical. It’s political. It piles up in contracts, in complacency, in the city’s collective shrug. And unlike biodegradable waste, corruption and inefficiency don’t decompose.

Maybe this time, things will change.

Maybe the mayor’s ultimatum will be the jolt the city needs — a reminder that clean streets aren’t just about aesthetics but about dignity. Or maybe, after 14 days, the garbage will still be there — only now, it will have a timeline.

In the end, the real cleanup isn’t in the streets. It’s in City Hall. And that’s a task force that might take more than 14 days to beat.