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Sunday, March 19, 2006
Mercado: Paying more for cholera
By Juan L. Mercado
Are we discovering belatedly what scientists call “the most underappreciated challenge of our time”, namely: spreading water shortages?
The most crucial issue, in the years ahead, will not be coups or politicians, the mint-new Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes said. It will be “water - and the lack of it.”
Are people finally waking up to what the UN Environmental Programme calls; “fall of the water?” An alarmed Cebu Business Club is getting members together before faucets turn dry in a city that pumps out twice the water it’s aquifers can recharge. In Metro Manila, salt water seeps into aquifers where overdrawing drags down water tables.
Out of every 100 liters, 86 are used in farms. Parched irrigation systems, in critical food baskets, like Central Luzon, crimp harvests in a country where the average rainfall of 2.36 meters is unevenly distributed. The Southern Tagalog region has the most freshwater available; Western Visayas the least.
We do not, however, have a monopoly of this problem. “In the Middle East, China, India, and the US, groundwater is being pumped faster than their aquifers are recharged. Worldwatch Institute’s Lester Brown writes. In Colorado, the Nile in Egypt and the Yellow River in China, little water reaches the sea for part of the year.
“During the dry season, the Ganges River has little water left when it reaches the Bay of Bengal,” Brown notes. India’s more than a billion people take the lion’s share of the water. Little is left Bangladesh farmers during the dry season.
These cripple food production and set off bitter competition.
In central Asia, the Amu Darya was one of two rivers that fed the Aral Sea.
Today, it is a stark salt desert, dotted with the rusting hulks that once were fishing boats. Farmers in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan drained it dry...As the Sea shrunk to half its original size, rising salt concentration destroyed all fish.
This wiped out an industry that once landed 100 million pounds of fish yearly.
Rivers here - from Agno, Naguilian to Agus and Polangi - are now flowing at reduced volumes with increasing pollution. “You can not wash filthy water,” an Arab proverb says. They’re warning signals of trouble upstream, in denuded watersheds and eroded soils.
There are also more buckets dipping into the same wells. There were 19 million Filipinos in 1940. Today, there are about 84 million of us. And by 2025, there could be 118.4 million. That‘d be comparable to five Malaysias lumped together.
UN projections foresee that population, despite declining fertility in many countries, will still grow: from nearly 6.5 billion to 9 billion people by 2050. “Food demand is expected to double,” the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) notes.
Over the same period, the demand for water - in homes, farms as well as factories - will balloon. “Water use is expected to double over the next 30 years,” FAO points out.
“This puts huge pressure on fresh water systems, not only for agriculture, but other competing needs, including clean water for human use, timber, biodiversity. Already, 30 percent of irrigated lands are degraded.”
Yet, that need must be met. Or the country will simply shrivel for one reason: there is no substitute for water.
Many among our “leaders” never heard, or care, about the “Millennium Development Goals”. Yet, the Philippines and 180 countries, adopted the MDGs in 2000. Target 10 in Goal Number 7 reads: “To have by 2015 the proportion of people with our sustainable access to safe drinking water.”
How are we faring by this yardstick?
Not too bad, if 2005 UN Human Development Report indicators are used. About 85 per cent of Filipinos tap into improved water sources. That backslid from 87 percent in 1990. Still, that’s better than Indonesia’s 78 percent. But it falls short of what Malaysian achieved: 95 per cent.
It’s when you go through provinces with a fine-tooth comb that the real-and worrisome-picture emerges.
Cebu prides itself as “the premier province.” Yet, 28 out of every 100 didn’t have “improved water sources,” Philippine Human Development Report 2005 reports That’s far better than Tawi’s staggering 82 or Masbate’s 79.
Provinces where one out of five lacked safe water included: Bohol, Laguna, Ilocos Nurte, Iloilo, Capiz, Negros Oriental and Occidental, Bukidnon, Davao del Norte and Sur, the two Zamboangas and Lanaos.
Lack of water translates into poor sanitation. Diarrhea is still a top killer, although it is preventable. “We pay more for our cholera, says a Good Shepherd nun who ministers to the poor in a city slum.
On the flip side, are the achievers in Pampanga, for example, only one out of 100, lack for safe water. Other top performers include, among others: Nueva Ecija Ilocos Sur, Abra, Batangas, Tarlac, Bulacan and Laguna.
The task head is to ensure “more bang for every drop.” The task requires policy to move from the single track of locating more supplies. Conservation must get the priority it has been denied. That requires protection of watersheds to tax breaks for those who conserve water.
As we mark World Water Day, it is good to recall the Chinese proverb: “Dig the wells before you get thirsty.”
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (March 19, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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