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[av_heading heading=’‘No development without water’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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ILOILO City – No development can ever take place without water, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said.
Undersecretary for Field Operations Isabelo Montejo said agencies and local government units (LGUs) need to facilitate investments that would allow them to manage water.
“Based on rainfall data, we only use about 50 percent of our rain water and surface water,” Montejo said.
Montejo was guest during the River Basin Organization Summit conducted in this city recently.
The participants came from national government units, academe, youth and civil society and particularly LGUs located in the river basins in Panay.
These river basins were the Jalaur Watershed River Basin, the Iloilo-Batiano River Basins and the Pan-ay Watershed River Basin.
“Iloilo is advanced in water management as it has now put in place the master plans for the three major river basins in Panay,” Montejo said.
He added: “With that it is already poised to welcome investors to utilize the full potentials of the three river basins.”
The investment summit presented to the potential investors the available resources within and around the three river basins, and aimed at tapping such investment potentials, addressing job generations.
On the other hand, DENR-6 director Jim Sampulna said the investment summit is actually tapping the business potentials for stakeholders in the areas concerned so that they will also benefit from these.
“The completion of the master plans for the three river basins is a way for us to balance development and environmental protection,” Sampulna said.
Montejo, meanwhile, said that despite concerns on water scarcity in the areas, there is no water shortage.
“There is rather a need to improve on the science of rainwater harvesting to fully benefit from this water source,” Montejo said. (PIA-Iloilo/PN)
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