MCWD, Cenro told: Educate public on water conservation

CEBU, Philippines — In order to educate the public on how to conserve water, Cebu City Councilor Jocelyn Pesquera is requesting the Cebu City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) and other concerned offices to conduct regular awareness forum.

Pesquera made this statement after she observed that the scarcity of water is a long standing issue every El Niño phenomenon adding that there was no effective or long term plan that has been implemented to address it.

Earlier, Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) appeared during the executive session in the City Council detailing that they don’t have enough supply for Cebu’s water demand.

With this, Pesquera realized that the city government should come up with their own way of addressing the scarcity of water.

She said CCENRO should coordinate with MCWD on this matter so that they can efficiently conduct education campaign to the public.

Pesquera said CCENRO and MCWD should disseminate information or programs on the importance of water.

Other than that they should encourage the barangay to at least install water catchment facilities as storage of rainwater.

Pesquera further said the education campaign shall be held in every barangay so that the barangay officials would help encourage the public to attend and listen.

“We can’t always depend on the measures that MCWD is implementing to resolve the problem. We (city government) must help them by utilizing our resources in informing the public on how to conserve water,” she said.

She added it is high time to strictly enforce the Water Conservation Ordinance which she authored earlier.

She has been very vocal on the importance of water as she was a former member of the Board of Director of MCWD.

The ordinance aims to inform the people how to conserve water.

“I think, through CCENRO, we can educate the public by tapping the barangays about it. We keep on experiencing the same problem during dry spell and all the efforts are coming from the concerned offices,” she told The FREEMAN.

She said addressing water shortage is not just a concern of MCWD and other agencies. The people should also help the authorities in solving this by properly conserving the water.

CCENRO head Ma. Nida Cabrera said her office is willing to heed with the request of Pesquera.

“No problem. Will do,” she told The FREEMAN in a text message. (FREEMAN)