The company whose gasification technology Dumaguete City bought in 2021 and shut down in 2025 has received the 2026 Presidential Filipinnovation Award, with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. personally handing the plaque and medal to its president on September 3 at Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria in Quezon City.
Vic Metal Fabrication and Environmental Services, Inc., led by Victoriano Ocon, was cited for its "Gasification Process for Waste Disposal: Advance Waste Solution." The Department of Science and Technology's Central Visayas office, which supported the entry, described it as a thermal decomposition process for municipal waste designed to reduce the volume needing disposal. Awardees received ₱3.5 million in cash grants and post-competition support.
The Dumaguete connection
Dumaguete's May 2021 contract for its Central Materials Recovery Facility was signed with Suki Trading Corporation, whose president is also Victoriano B. Ocon. The ₱21.9-million package covered one AWS-EPCD pyrolysis-gasification unit with a pollution control device, sorting conveyors with scrubbers, shredders, a plastic densifier, pulverizers, a mortar mixer, and a hollow block machine. City procurement documents at the time described the system as Japanese-designed and Indonesian-built, carrying a DOST Environmental Technology Verification.
The unit began operating around March 2022. That month, EMB-DENR Director William Cuñado inaugurated the facility and called it the first income-generating MRF in the Philippines, recommending it as a National Ecological Center training site.
Why it stopped
On July 17, 2025, Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria issued Memorandum Order No. 2 stopping the pyrolysis unit, plastic extruder, and densifier "until the necessary permit to operate is secured." The order followed a July 14 letter from DENR-7 Regional Director Ma. Victoria Abrera noting the three units lacked a permit to operate, proposing a ₱19,500 fine, and giving the city 60 days to secure the permit. A separate DENR-EMB invitation to a technical conference listed seven environmental compliance certificate items, none concerning air emissions.
Two weeks earlier, War on Waste Negros Oriental and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives had launched a self-published air monitoring report calling for the unit's immediate closure. The report used seven portable sensors worn by 17 volunteers and was not peer-reviewed. No permit application by the city has been publicly reported since the 60-day window closed in September 2025.
Elsewhere in the country
Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, launched a ₱45-million DOST-supported pyrolysis plant in 2025 that DOST has since called a benchmark facility. Cebu City and Isabela Province have procurement records with Vic Metal. In his July 2026 State of the Nation Address, the President asked Congress to amend the Solid Waste Management Act to allow waste-to-energy, and on August 12 called such plants the only solution to the garbage crisis.
The facility today
The Central MRF in Barangay Candau-ay currently holds unprocessed mixed waste. Dumaguete has no sanitary landfill. On September 3, the day of the award, EMB-7 Regional Director Jed Ang confirmed the bureau has no air quality monitoring station covering Negros Oriental.
Kuryente News has published an editorial on the shutdown and the award; a full timeline is on Breaking News Negros Oriental.