REALLY NOW, it’s still about what Baguio is in the mind of Filipino families aspiring to spend a few days or so, summertime or not, when the chance hits them. Will they survive without it? Will they make it through in just a matter of days?
For days on end, we’ve had much too much of it, pouring down in mighty force from above, and rampaging most lowland areas. Yes, it’s all really about what we need to stay alive in just a matter of days without it, all about what we need to gush out from our faucets every now and then, all about what we need for us to do our usual morning rituals. In brief, it’s all about what we’ve been experiencing, and enduring, all this time in our dear city of ours, the nearest under Philippine skies.
But how come, we’ve not been having some of it these past days, despite the rains? Ask every housewife constantly on the watch, there’s nothing on most days, gushing out. The last time we heard, the Baguio Water District was in near-completion of the Sto. Tomas rain basin rehabilitation project at a cost of over P90 million by last count. That was about January this year, when our water officials were in exuberant mood, gushing out that confidently said that when finally completed the next month, the 10-hectare rain basin facility will be capable of storing up to 700,000 cubic meters or 700 million liters.
Perhaps, it’s about time we get to ask what has happened since then. Has the rehabilitated rain basin facility been able store what amount of water from all the rains that occurred this month alone? Or, to be fair, has the rehab work been in fact completed as gloriously announced six months back?
Of course, we all know that rainwater storage will start kicking in these rainy months, from June all the way to December. Which means that the earliest households would be served by that much water — about 700,000 cubic meters, as planned — should be anytime soon, if not now, if only to alleviate us from too less of water. Oldtimers in fact recall that before this facility was mothballed in the last several decades from quake-caused damages, it used to supply water to more than 6,000 households situated in Baguio’s southern parts.
Given the current situation afflicting Baguio residents, not just the southern communities but elsewhere, anything pleasant about added water supply can only be welcomed as a sunshine development. Finally, our water supply will have additional sources to draw from. After all, it’s a common afflicting experience we’ve been having since time immemorial — enough to dissuade lowlanders from trekking up here due to an impending waterless experience.
And lest we forget, our water sources have long been depleting fast, and there’s nowhere else to draw added supply internally. Fact is, our watersheds — about 6 of them throughout the city — needs time to regenerate and produce more, not less, of it.
Back in the mid-90’s, President Ramos lost no time in grappling with our waterless world that he poured presidential support to water sourcing projects of waterless-stricken cities, Baguio among them. From bulk water supply to spring development to re-piping of water distribution lines all the way to rain harvesting and storing facilities such as that in Mount Sto. Tomas, FVR backed them all up, sourly observing that since Baguio has the heaviest rainfall in any given year, it should make sense that water officials opt for water-enhancing public investments.
We all know what happened all through the years that were spent on big-ticket items like bulk water supply supposedly coming from external sources — places like Ambuklao Dam, Tuba’s spring sites, even Antamok’s abandoned open mining pit — through development projects that are principally foreign-funded. After two failed public biddings, spread out in nearly two decades, that kind of a project got shelved. So where else can we draw the added water supply?
As for the rain harvesting endeavor, well, there’s had not been much fund to plough in that would have rehabilitated the 1990 quake-devastated Sto. Tomas rain storage facility, without denting BWD’s, and even the city’s money banks, which have been drained for trash. Accordingly, It was only in the last three years when the BWD got ample funding support to get the Sto. Tomas rain basin rehab really going, nearly P100 million to make it work again.
Lest water consumers begin to now heave a consummating sigh of relief from our commonplace inadequacies, it’s about time that all stakeholders begin to ponder on the barest essentials not just of what we’re lacking on a day-to-day basis, but on how much all these heaving and panting will make us sweat it out as a daily grind.
Given BWD’s mandate, as the franchise holder of Baguio’s water source development, supply and distribution, it should not be too big a problem for us to be in the loop of what’s in store ahead, not just the rainwater that we should be using as added source, but even more so the maximum cost it will entail to support the average water bill. Nothing after all is a free lunch anywhere, and we might as well know how much of a shocker it will be at the end of every billing period.
Make a good note of it, but there’s a global water crisis imminently hovering — and happening — in the next five or less years. Mother Earth may be three-fourths all water, but it’s not just possible to draw from it safe, clean, potable water for our daily sustenance, without the use of the right technology and the right money to make it work for us. Right, there’s water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
Time’s up to quench our thirst, even if that means sweating it much of the time, just to get less and less of what’s there all around at this drenching time of the year.
