Ito ang dahilan kung bakit mabaho ang Metro Manila

11M in Metro have no sewer access
First posted 11:59pm (Mla time) Aug 01, 2005 By Blanche S. Rivera, Inquirer News Service
www.inq7.nethttp://news.inq7.net/metro/index.php?index=1&story_id=45548

MORE than 11 million residents of Metro Manila—or around 85 percent of the population—do not have access to proper sewerage facilities, the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) revealed.

This makes Metro Manila the second worst Asian city in terms of sewer Connection -- worse off than even the underdeveloped city of Dhaka in Bangladesh.

Only between 12 to 15 percent of the population are connected to sewer lines managed by the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System and private concessionaire Manila Water Co.

“The other 85 percent of the population discharge their waste water directly to septic tanks that do not get cleaned up or do not undergo treatment for years,” said Marcelino N. Rivera Jr., EMB water quality management officer.

These individual septic tanks are not regulated, unlike the sewer line which has a central treatment facility that regularly treats waste water, he added.

EMB Director Lolibeth Medrano said waste water needs to be sucked out from the septic tanks and treated every five years or it gets too thick for treatment.

Those who have individual septic tanks not connected to the main sewer usually overlook this requirement, she observed.

“People do not treat waste water in their septic tanks unless the tanks are clogged,” Medrano said.

She said water suppliers are mandated to treat waste water for free because this service is included in the sewerage charge, which is incorporated in the water bill.

“The problem is that few people know it. Unless the water suppliers get a request to clean up the septic tanks, they do not do it,” Medrano said.

A 2003 report by the World Bank showed that Metro Manila was next to Jakarta among nine Asian cities in terms of lack of access to pipe sewerage.

“Household waste water or sewerage is a major source of pollution because treatment facilities are lacking,” the report said.

“Access to sewerage in Metro Manila is poor compared with other cities in Asia,” the same report added.

Rivera said the government is seeking to reverse the situation with the passage of the implementing rules and regulations of the Clean Water Act in May.

The new law requires all subdivisions, condominiums, malls, hotels and other public buildings in highly urbanized cities (HUC) to connect their sewage lines to the existing system by 2010.

Non-HUCs are mandated to employ a septage or combined sewerage-septage system to ensure sanitation.

Water suppliers like the MWSS, water districts and water concessionaires are required to coordinate with local governments for the installation of sewerage systems.

Water pollution far more dangerous than we realize
First posted 11:51pm (Mla time) Aug 01, 2005 By Inquirer News Service
http://news.inq7.net/opinion/index.php?index=1&story_id=45544

WATER pollution is an overlooked yet prevalent issue in Metro Manila today. As mentioned in Blanche Rivera’s article, “Metro Manila’s ‘largest septic tank’ near death” (Inquirer, 6/24/05), Laguna de Bay, the country’s biggest lake is deteriorating due to waste from households.

Aside from the fact that the rapid urbanization caused some people to illegally set up their houses near -- or, worse, on top of -- rivers, the settlers themselves have no idea about proper management of waste—one of the major causes of water pollution. In addition, according to Water Tech Online, there are concerns that the rotting heaps of garbage deposited in Payatas, the garbage dump in the Manila suburb of Quezon City, are polluting the reservoir behind La Mesa dam, the source of drinking water for the people in Metro Manila.

However, we tend to disregard the situation, not to mention its effects—such as, groundwater contamination, breeding ground for roaches and rodents -- and the health impacts which are caused by harmful bacteria that can proliferate both in our homes and in our communities. The international environmental group Greenpeace has stated that “La Mesa reservoir now contains toxic substances due to the runoff of flood waters at the Payatas dump site caused by the recent heavy monsoon rains.” In addition to this, The Philippine Urban Sewerage and Sanitation has noted that out of 418 rivers in the country, 37 are seriously polluted and 11 are considered “biologically dead.”

As stated in the “Overview of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act,” citing reports from the National Solid Waste Management Commission, “only 73 percent of the 5,250 metric tons of waste generated daily are collected by dump trucks hired by our respective local government units. The remaining 27 percent or about 1,417.5 metric tons of our daily waste end up in canals, vacant spaces, street corners, market places, rivers and other places.”

On the other hand, we have rules for waste management. As mentioned in the “Overview,” Republic Act 9003 strengthened the local government units’ role in the collection of both non-biodegradable and special wastes, at the same time as the "barangay" [village] units were to segregate and collect biodegradable and reusable wastes.

As we can see, water pollution is of our own making and its consequences could be much worse in the future. So what is our role here? To formulate new rules? We actually have them already; we just lack the initiative to implement them.

Ponder on this: if each and every one of us were just a tad more responsible and effective, then pollution would actually be history. Would it not be better if the words and phrases “pollution,” “diseases caused by garbage-bred bacteria,” and “biologically dead rivers” -- rather than our natural resources and who knows what else -- become extinct?

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