Air and seaports lack transport, toilet seats

Astute congressmen inspected seaports from Luzon to Mindanao and discharged a gut-wrenching recommendation: build more toilets. One might ask how much cash was flushed down the drain just for that. On the other hand, why does it need a select congressional body to tell transport and tourism authorities to look after something so banal.

Air and seaports nationwide do lack restrooms. Not so much a sophisticated nautical highway than common bowel discomfort connects Philippine islands. The few ports that do have toilets stink from shortage of running water. Travelers’ icky tales of woes invariably fall on deaf bureaucratic ears.

Why such disregard for basic sanitation? Perhaps it’s a matter of taste and priority. The head of the premiere Manila international airport during the past administration, a retired Air Force general, was so obsessed with aviation security that he overlooked the need for clean latrines. The one time that then-President Noynoy Aquino and transport secretary Mar Roxas toured the facility and needed to “answer the call of nature,” they had to be accompanied all the way to the general manager’s office toilet two buildings away.

Not only ports but also land routes lack toilets. Tourist shops and diners line provincial and municipal roads – all with inhospitable “comfort rooms.” Travelers from the city soon realize that the locals relieve themselves behind trees, by road and creek sides, on railways and in playgrounds. Many times they have had to ask to be taken to the mayor’s manor at the poblacion, the only dwelling with a decent water closet. The few tourist attractions that do have washrooms are equipped not with flush levers and paper towels but buckets and dippers.

The Philippines could learn a thing or two from India. In that land of 1.324 billion people, one in ten deaths is due to poor hygiene. As of 2014 a third of the population, including 115 million city dwellers, had no toilets. Much of the solid waste ended up untreated in streams, lakes, and ponds, contaminating the groundwater. Children sickened from chronic infections that impaired body absorption of nutrients; diarrhea killed by the hundreds of thousands every year. So the government resolved to end public defecation in five years by 2019. Each household was given 12,000 rupees (P9,350) to install a toilet. So far more than 50 million home latrines have been built, and India is on the homestretch with 12 million unequipped homes to go. The target year is significant; it is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, for whom sanitation was so sacred and “more important than political freedom.” China has its own program to build tens of millions of public and home toilets.

The Philippine government supposedly was a bit ahead. In 2012 the transport department allotted P341 million to build and repair more than a thousand toilets in train stations, air and seaports, and attached offices nationwide. As expected, however, sleaze accompanied the project, as a favored supplier-contractor was hired in Manila to deliver and construct even in the Visayas and Mindanao. The shit hit the fan. Two years later the budget department recalled the money because the transport officials had no clear implementation plan – no toilet training, perhaps.

In the end no bowl was ever installed. Present transport officials have not picked up the ball. So last Mar. 2017 a special committee of Congress had to embark on a Western-Eastern Nautical Highway Expedition, stopping at a dozen major ports, only to propose more facilities for rest and relief. To think that the present administration aims to bring the country to upper-middle income status by the time it steps down in 2022. What a mess.

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Latest update: the surgical staples (stitches) were removed yesterday. Caused some discomfort, but she’s cheerful as always.

Our dear Fatima Soriano, inspirational prayer leader and singer, needs help. She had a second kidney transplant last Dec. 8, Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Thank God it was successful; Fatima is in stable condition and recovering well. But some hospital bills need settling. It being the second (the first was in 2004), the procedure was high risk. Preparations were critical, like plasmapheresis and ATG to eliminate other antibodies.

Donations may be deposited to the account of Ma. Fatima V. Soriano, Banco de Oro-Mo. Ignacia, QC branch, No. 005630400763.

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