’17 M Pinoys still do not have access to clean water’

MANILA, Philippines – Some 17 million Filipinos still do not have access to safe water while 25 percent of the population does not have “individual type of sanitation facilities,” an administration lawmaker said yesterday.

Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy said that because of these embarrassing figures, the Philippines could achieve only 82 percent of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals on sustainable water supply by 2015.

“Every single day, probably 10 million citizens defecate in the open, with serious consequences to the health, dignity and human development,” Herrera-Dy said.

She said the country’s potable water is insufficient to meet the rising population.

“The poor have the worst access to water and pay more for water. Thirty-one percent of illnesses are water-related,” she said.

Herrera-Dy, vice chairperson of the House Committee on Welfare of Children and member of the House Committee on Housing and Urban Development, aired the warning shortly after attending the three-day 2010 Parliamentarians for Water and Asia in Seoul, South Korea.

She reported to Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. that participating Asian lawmakers agreed to push a legislative agenda that will impose tough measures for water conservation in their respective countries.

During the conference, Herrera-Dy batted for stronger political commitment among Asian parliamentarians in addressing national and regional water and sanitation management concerns as she warned of a worldwide water crisis resulting from climate change and human apathy.

She said the country’s dismal water situation may be presented to the 6th World Water Forum in Marseilles, France in 2012.

She said further aggravating the problem are the lack of cooperation among agencies and local government units and in some areas, conflicts on water use priorities.

“There is no central or lead agency in the water resource sector,” Herrera-Dy said as she pointed out that financing and investments for water supply projects are also inadequate.

She cited the Metro Manila experience where two private firms have collected billions of pesos from water users to finance water supply and sewerage improvement programs that are still to be implemented by them.

Herrera-Dy proposed some solutions to the country’s water issues, including reviewing existing laws and policies of the entire water industry; creating a Water Regulatory Commission for effective transparency and accountability; introducing tariff structures to regulate demand; financing urban water infrastructure development in order to prevent water providers from collecting inflated and advanced water bill rates; and establishing a unified department that would focus on water sewerage and sanitation, hence the abolition of other agencies performing the same functions. -(The Philippine Star)