THE National Water Resource Board reported that 11 million families lack access to clean water in the Philippines which accounts to 41.6% of the 26,393,906 total number of Filipino families.
It’s such a sad reality that almost half of the total number of Filipino families do not have access to clean water due to lack of supply, resulting to severe sanitation issues.
Yesterday was World Water Day, as declared by the United Nations to raise awareness of the two billion people – including the 11 million Filipino families – living without access to safe and clean water.
It is imperative that the government takes an active role in ensuring that every Filipino has safe and potable water by having a comprehensive management program on water safety planning. The creation of the Department of Water Resources is one of the priority measures of the Marcos administration mentioned during the President’s first State of the Nation Address. This is good.
In the Senate, there’s a pending Bill No. 1048 or the Safe Drinking Water Act which seeks to require water service providers to submit a water safety plan and conduct over-all examination of water quality every two months and obtain permits and certifications such as Certificate of potability of drinking water. We hope this is approved soon.
To ensure the preservation, management and utilization of the country’s water resources, another Senate bill, Bill No. 2013 or the “National Water Act”, seeks to establish a national framework for water resource management and the creation of the Department of Water Resources and the Water Regulatory Commission.
In 2000 the UN General Assembly made a landmark declaration that sent an important signal to the world —it declared that safe and clean drinking water and sanitation was a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. How should we give life to this?
For an archipelagic country with abundant water resources, we need a sole government body which is focused on water resource management and will also strengthen the implementation of water-related laws to improve coordination among regulatory bodies. This is a good start.
