The 6.9-magnitude earthquake that hit us last week highlighted a social problem that affects millions around the world. As tremors shook northern Cebu, people fled their homes and evacuated to open spaces or to makeshift shelters that lack access to clean, potable water.
Water poverty, a situation where a locality can’t afford the cost of sustainable potable water for its residents, affects us all in one way or another. But this is most strongly felt during calamities when widespread damage and destruction affect the water supply.
Which is why, along with food, sanitary items, shelter and medicines, the demand for water suddenly spiked in Cebu over the last few days, filling our media universe with photos of earthquake victims holding up signs asking for drinking water.
At the foot of the old Mandaue-Opon Bridge where a popular mineral water company operates in Mandaue City, traffic has hit a standstill as trucks swarmed its premises to load up gallons of water. Meanwhile, bottled water has also disappeared from grocery shelves.
Low water supply has always been Cebu’s waterloo. In a 2010 presidential debate, Cebu’s lack of water stood out as an issue that the candidates tangled with. Last year, Cebu suffered from a drought that damaged crops and livestock while affecting supply to tens and thousands of households.
Cebu relies mainly on the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) for water. But MCWD’s pipelines reach only a portion of the households in Metro Cebu, the central urban core of the island-province. Even its daily production of 300,000 cubic meters of water couldn’t cover the entire metropolitan area.
Fortunately, there are nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that work tirelessly to bring clean water to even the remote areas by setting up community-based filtration systems. With water poverty affecting more than 600 million people globally, these NGOs strive to bring safe drinking water to every home, especially in rural communities.
One such NGO is the Planet Water Foundation, a United States-based non-profit organization committed to producing clean water to disadvantaged communities, including those hit by calamities. Worldwide, the foundation has deployed more than 1,300 clean water and hygiene education projects across 15 countries since 2009.
Representatives of Planet Water came to town last week in response to the water poverty that spiked here after the earthquake. Fulfilling its promise of supporting communities impacted by disasters by providing access to safe drinking water, the group pledged to install a clean water project in Medellin.
At the core of the project are the Municipality’s health personnel, inasmuch as the water filtration system likewise calls for the introduction of an equally-important hygiene education program.
And the group’s arrival couldn’t have been more well-timed. Because as a direct result of the earthquake, sources of water seem to be mysteriously appearing here and there.
In Medellin as well as in the Municipality of San Remegio, more than 30 sinkholes have emerged, many with water in them. In Barangay Libertad in Bogo City, water has suddenly appeared out of muddy soil, bursting like a spring. Other sinkholes have also been reported in the Municipalities of Borbon and Daanbantayan.
Perhaps, Planet Water could look into how feasible it would be to tap these new sources of water to support the earthquake-stricken communities in northern Cebu. If indeed feasible and sustainable, then these could become precious resources for our people’s overall health and well-being.