EDITORIAL - A basic need

Amid criticisms of her order to ease hunger within six months as well as her advice to the hungry to buy food instead of alcoholic beverages and luxuries, President Arroyo ordered yesterday the release of P500 million for programs to mitigate hunger, including the school milk-feeding program. Perhaps the stopgap measure is better than nothing, and the move looks good in the season of giving — not Christmas, but election season.

How much will the administration release to ease the lack of an even more basic need — water? As World Water Day was observed, environment experts warned residents of several villages in Las Piñas to stop using groundwater for drinking or even for washing clothes and watering plants until tests can determine if the water supply has been contaminated by a carcinogenic industrial solvent. The substance was used in the manufacture of electric lamps by Philips Electronics and Lighting until it shut down its plant in 1996. At week’s end, the city government had to resort to water rationing in the affected areas.

Las Piñas, one of the cities in the nation’s premier region, continues to live in the 19th century when it comes to water supply. Maynilad water services failed to reach the city. One day the city’s foundations will crumble from over-extraction of ground water. But Las Piñas residents, who pay a fortune for water supply from independent distributors, should count themselves lucky for the deep wells. In many other parts of the country, people rely on communal artesian wells for their fresh water needs. And in some areas, residents get their fresh water supply direct from the source, fetching water from rivers, lakes and mountain streams.

The lack of fresh water supply poses serious health risks; cholera has reappeared in different parts of the country and water-borne diseases are among the biggest causes of infant mortality. But the water problem has never been given urgent attention because the people who are in a position to do something live in affluent areas that experience water shortage only when there’s a busted water pipe. Perhaps a survey on self-rated thirst, especially during the campaign period, can end official apathy.