Mercado: Blistering summers

Saturday, February 4, 2012

CEBU areas, flooded by abnormal downpours in October and December, are dry. Evacuation centers for typhoon “Sendong flood victims are emptying. Front pages focus on the Chief Justice's impeachment.

But Summer 2012 could be blistering, long---and permanent. The equatorial “band of rain” has shifted, cautions University of Washington scientists. Ocean surface temperature is rising, resulting in faster evaporation of and heavier rainfall,” adds “State of the Oceans” study.

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“Dig the well before you get thirsty,” Chinese sages counsel. Anybody use cisterns, as required by the Rainwater Catchment Law (RA 6716)?

Cebu City splurged P142 million for a legislative building. But it didn’t put in the mandatory rainwater cistern. So, when Metro Cebu Water District (MCWD) falters, City Hall toilets won’t flush---until the fire department sends over a dilapidated tanker.

National government set up four demonstration rainwater collectors of the 100,000 that RA 6716 mandated. That’s 0.004 percent of target. Cisterns don’t figure in pork barrels, although 66 out of every 100 Filipinos lack water.

Under President Aquino, there’s been an initial but still fragile reversal of near-blanket infraction of RA 6716.

Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo and Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to implement the moribund rainwater collections systems law. The MOA sketches out technical help to securing funds.

The Iloilo City Council didn’t wait for taps to run dry. Thanks to Councilor Edgar Labella, Cebu has a cistern ordinance. So has Davao City.

Ordinances are "often honored in breach than in practice." Former mayor Tomas Osmeña’s approach to a parched city was to hire a water diviner and send water tankers to seared barangays---in summer. Indeed, “the law hath not been dead, though it hath slept,” Shakespeare wrote.

Opposition often comes from water districts. Faced with wells tainted by salt, Bulacan Water District turned to harvesting rainwater---until the manager asked about income to pay off their loans. End of the planning. Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn wanted rainwater harvesting in his city---until the water district posed the same concern.

Rainwater cisterns, down to barangays, will address flooding and increasingly severe water shortages in Cebu City, Magsaysay laureate Antonio Oposa Jr. told Sun Star. Installation of rainwater catchment is important because Cebu’s aquifers are drying up.

Oposa asked the Supreme Court to issue a Writ of Kalikasan. That’d compel LGUs, like Cebu City, and other agencies to construct rainwater collectors, as required by the Rainwater Collector and Springs Development Act.

Rainwater is a primary source of water supply. What keeps the river flowing is the rain and stored water in watersheds, catchments or cisterns. Stored water is finite.

Lack of water policy “exemplifies the old adage about death by a thousand cuts,” the Guardian newspaper of London notes. “There is no single place to concentrate blame except in the mirror.”

"Traditional economic and consumer values that formerly served society well, when coupled with current rates of population increase, are not sustainable," it adds.

“We need to account for the impact we have on the planet each time we flush a toilet, drink a pop, hop in a car, or eat a radish. There is no shortage of solutions, just a shortage of political will.”

(juan_mercado77@yahoo.com)