A few weeks ago, no less than President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. himself warned that we could be facing a potential water crisis this summer.
With almost all economic activities that had been curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic now back in full force, a crisis in our water supply – in the middle of the hottest periods in the year – is an issue our local government units should monitor and take action.
But for many residents in Laguna province, inefficient delivery of water supply services is no news – it’s already part and parcel of their everyday lives.
Remember last year, when San Pedro City Mayor Art Mercado himself dangled the possibility of terminating the services of the city’s private-run water concessionaire due to endless complaints about the lack of water supply, as well as the poor quality of the water delivered?
(That water concessionaire, by the way, has been given up until this year to fix the issues hounding its consumers. It remains to be seen, however, whether that concessionaire has come up with promises of improving their services.)
With the real possibility of temperatures zooming up to unbearable levels by April or May, the ball is now on our water service providers – as well as the LGUs, who monitor and regulate their services – to ensure a stable supply of water to their consumers.
Sure, it’s easy to tell our residents to stock up on their own water supply or implement measures to conserve water – which, by the way, we should all be doing, in fairness. (Remember that suggestion recently made by some officials running our water resources to ban car wash services and private swimming pools, a suggestion that earned the ridicule of netizens?)
But putting all the pressure on the populace to scrimp on such a vital element of living as water is also unfair to residents who deserve a steady and potable supply – something that, for many Lagunenses, has been denied them for decades.