Gov. Lilia G. Pineda though has not the time to wait, as she’s engaged herself, heradministration in some battles over water now.
Notwithstanding the Department of Health reporting that 83 percent of Pampanga households have access to safe and clean water, the governor – true to her motherhood persona – would still want unadulterated certainty on the high potability of water in the province for the health and general well-beingof her constituency.
At the safe water summit – the first ever in Central Luzon – she initiated last week with the DOH and the local water districts, the governor put the question of the day: What good are the fbillions of pesos spent in government health and sanitation programs, if the DOH does not engage with the local water districts to ensure the safety of the water we drink?
“Lahat ng pagpupunyagi ng DOH, pati na ng mga pamahalaang lokal, tungo sa kalusugan ng mga mamamayan ay mauuwi sa wala, kung ang tubig na iniinom, na ginagamit sa pagluluto man o sa paglilinis sa katawan, ay hindi sisiguraduhing malinis at ligtas mula sa anumang dumi, mikrobyo, o mga contaminants (All the efforts of the DOH, as well as those of the local governments’ will come to naught, if the water we drink, we use for cooking and ablutions, is not certifiably clean and safe from dirt, germs and other contaminants),” said the governor.
Of special concern to Pampanga’s Nanay is the greater access of the masses, the poor and the marginalized particularly, to safe water.
“The bottled mineral water to those who can afford to buy it must be made just as accessible to those who make do from the faucets in their homes,” she said. “This has to be in practice, not only in policy, among the water districts.”
Toward that goal, the governor called for synergy among the DOH, the local water districts and the local government units.
“This does not mean, in any way, the LGU encroaching on the authority of the LWUA (Local Water Utilities Administration) or interveningin the affairs of the individual water districts,” Pineda said.
Stressing: “This is responding to a critical need to ensure the health of our people which we are sworn to uphold.”
The water issue is neither passing fad nor novelty in the Pineda administration.
Aware of the continuing depletion of ground water and the resultant subsidence which Pampanga is prone to, the governor early in her first term commissioned – at no cost to the government – a study on tapping surface water for household needs, precisely with the Pampanga River as source.
The study was made by Maynilad, courtesy of Kapampangan Manny V. Pangilinan, who is top honcho of the water service firm’s controlling Metro Pacific Investments Corp.
Cost-benefit ratio raised questions on the feasibility of putting up the infrastructure for surface water as potable water source at this time. In the near future, it may just be a certainty.
The abundance, indeed overabundance, of water during the rainy season in the province interspersed with its dearth in the heat of summer, sprang another brainchild from the governor – the establishment of a series of reservoir dams upstream the Pasig-Potrero River for irrigation purposes.
Even as a pipsqueak of an opposition was raised by the quarry operators, fearful that the flow of sand downstream would be contained by the dams, thereby adversely affecting the lucrative industry, the need to ascertain the feasibility of the idea remains an imperative.
Given the equal need of the agriculture sector to have full-year access to irrigation water and tapping sources for it other than the fast depleting ground water.
The next wars – over water – are yet to come. But the battles have started, with the governor fully engaged. The Kapampangan must do his share. To win, for his own sake.
