Waterless taps prospect bugs war-distracted Filipinos

Cruise missiles slamming into Baghdad blotted out this year’s "World Day for Water" message, namely long after Saddam is a dusty footnote in history, water shortages will still trigger the most serious conflicts.

World Day for Water is marked on March 22 by 180 United Nations members. But many Filipinos believe the country is water-rich. Few bother with what this month’s Third World Water Forum in Japan, called : "hydrological poverty."

The reality is different. Each Filipino has 4,476 liters of "internal renewable water resources," the UN Development Programme notes. In contrast, Malaysians have 21,259 liters and Burmese 22,719.

Water is basic for life, the Japan meeting insisted. There’s no substitute for water. And supply is also limited.

Less than three percent of all the world’s water is potable. The rest form the oceans. When wells turn brackish, or taps run dry, harvests fail and disease moves in. The equation is simple – and bleak.

Yet, we’re not the only country confronted by emerging water shortages. True.

"Moderate gains have been made in every region," the World Health Organization notes. "But at the turn of the century, one out of six persons was unable to meet need for safe water. ".

The fact is : 29 out of every 100 rural residents lack potable water. They go without a household connection, public standpipe, borehole or even a protected dug well.

A breakdown of Filipinos who lack access "to improved water sources" is presented by the UN Philippine Human Development Report, Read – and weep.

"Hydrological poverty" results in three out of 10 residents lacking access to safe water in these provinces: Rizal, Iloilo, Bukidnon, Quezon, Palawan, Aklan, Bohol, Negros Oriental, Cagayan, Ifugao, Biliran and Agusan del Sur,

It’s worse in Guimaras, Apayao, Ifugao as well as the ARRM provinces Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, and Maguindanao. There, four out of 10 make do with polluted water.

Contrasts between provinces is startling. Almost everybody in Pampanga has safe water sources. But seven out of ten, in Lanao del Sur, do not.

This water penury results in an endless treadmill of water-borne epidemics from gastro-enteritis to sporadic cholera outbreaks. Diahrrhea alone claims 2.2 million lives worldwide.

These are preventable deaths. "Targeted water, sanitation and health hygiene interventions could easily reduce ( these needless deaths ) by one quarter to one third," WHO adds.

The so-called "Yeat’s Indicator" reflects this tragic problem. But the scientists prefer to call it : "Survival Rates for Elderly."

"We dreamed he would comb grey hair," the poet W.B. Yeats wrote. But in the Philippines, 21 out of every 100 there go into premature graves without grey hair. They are "not expected to survive until the age 60".

For Singapore, the comparative figure is eight. In Korea ( south, not the starving north ) and Malaysia, it is 16 while Brunei reports 11.

The ambulant peddler, on a tricycle loaded with five gallon-tins of water, symbolizes the "hydrological poverty" that savages the poor even more.

People crammed in slums here pay from P1.20 to P3.00 for a can of unsafe water from vendors.. But executives in plush subdivision pay a fraction for piped water. A liter of bottled water costs P12.50. If taken from municipal water systems that costs one centavo.

"Those not connected to water supplies pay on average 12 times more per liter of water than other people," says Vital Signs, the Worldwatch Institute’s annual summation. "In Jakarta, Indonesia, people pay water vendors some 60 times the cost of water from a standard hook-up.

Migration and births have boosted population and multiplied demand. Population here has reached 80.3 million – from the 19 million in 1940. It will probably crest at 117.3 million by 2025.

Farms and industries need for water, meanwhile, is escalating. As demand spirals, water sources like aquifers are increasingly strained.

"The present capacity of Cebu’s coastal aquifer is 150,000 cubic meters daily.," the Water Resources Center at San Carlos University reports. "But actual pumping is double that , or 300,000 cubic meters per day. This is not sustainable."

As aquifers empty, sea water seeps and turns irreversibly chunk after chunk, into brackish unusable cesspools. The "saline edge" has moved three kilometers inland.

"Systematic observations on this intrusion, since 1975, show that in 2025, half of the coastal aquifer will be permanently lost," WRC director Fr. Herman Van Engelen warns.

World Day for Water 2003 calls for a gut-wrenching shift towards a water efficient economy. Filipinos must wring more benefits per liter and break generations-old wasteful habits. They need to restore denuded watersheds and to end the politicking that blocks investment in water facilities.

"People in the area serviced by Metro Cebu Water District, stand with their back against the wall, " WRC’s Fr. Van Engelen says. "One must be prepared, in 10 years’ time to face water riots in Cebu." Or other Philippine cities for that matter. – DEPHnews