I HAVE no doubt in my mind that graft is one of the causes of bad governance, but it seems that ignorance and incompetence could even be more profound cases.
God forbid, because the worst combination really is the combination of graft and corruption on one hand, and ignorance and incompetence on the other hand.
In a manner of speaking, that would be like putting gunpowder and an ember together, and you would surely know what would happen next.
At the first mention of graft, I purposely left out corruption, so that I could bring forward my argument that corruption is not really the end problem in itself, because it is really just the cause of graft, the two having a cause and effect relationship.
In theory, there will be no graft if there is no corruption. In other words, it is corruption that causes graft, never mind what others say that there is no poverty if there is no corruption.
As it is supposed to be, every town or city should have its own sewerage system, apart from its own drainage system. The problem is, some towns and cities do not even have proper drainage system.
What is worst is that some of the local government officials do not even know the difference between a drainage system and a sewerage system, thinking perhaps that they are one and the same.
Perhaps part of the problem is that some of these towns and cities also do not have their own waterworks system. I mentioned that because as it is supposed to be, waterworks and sewerage are supposed to work in tandem, even if they are not one and the same.
Obviously what is lacking here is the higher consciousness to appreciate and understand what ought to be done not only to ensure the supply of water, but also to prevent water from being polluted.
I have no doubt in my mind that what happened in Boracay a few years back has happened in many other towns and cities and whatever has happened is still happening now in many other places.
Just to be clear, Boracay is an island that is part of the town of Malay in Aklan province. What that means is that Boracay is not an island by itself so to speak, because it has a municipal government that is supposed to take responsibility over it.
As it is supposed to be therefore, the mainland town of Malay is supposed to have its own sewerage system, aside from a separate sewerage system that should have been built in Boracay. As it happened, no sewerage systems were built in the island and in the mainland, indicating gross negligence among the local officials, surely involving many sets of them over years.
As it surely happened in the recent past, all of the hotels and resorts in Boracay built their own septic tanks and some of them might have seen the wisdom of building a sewerage treatment plant (STP). In all probability, most of them may have gotten their Environmental Clearance Certificates (ECCs) simply because they had septic tanks, and even if they did not have their own STPs.
To be fair to all the hotels and resorts there however, it was the municipal government that was supposed to build a complete sewerage system, with an STP being a crucial part of it.
What that means is that a municipality is not really compliant if it does not have a complete sewerage system, even if it has an STP.
After a massive rehab beginning in 2018, Boracay now has a sewerage system that includes an STP, and that system should service the entire municipality, not just some of the hotels and resorts.
First of all however, they should also know the difference between a dumpsite and a landfill, because the two are not one and the same. Either way however, the leakages from both will cause damage to the aquifer.
In theory, a landfill may be less harmful to the aquifer if it is properly built, but more often than not, the layers placed underneath are not enough to prevent the seepage or the leaching into the aquifer.
There are too many ways to overwhelm the aquifer, but all of them pollutes the water that we are supposed to drink./PN
