EDITORIAL - Discomfort rooms

In many public places across the country, comfort rooms are anything but comfortable. So the public should welcome the news that the Light Rail Transit 1 will soon feature upgraded restrooms.

This week the LRT-1 management signed a deal with a private company to provide what the light rail operator described as “cleaner, more comfortable and modern restroom” facilities.

Pilot projects will be rolled out at the EDSA and Fernando Poe Jr. stations by the third quarter of this year. Two options will be available: free facilities, and a premium one accessible for a fee.

The premium facility is unlikely to feature state-of-the-art toilets that are widely available in countries such as Japan and South Korea, but it is expected to be a significant improvement from the existing LRT-1 restrooms.

While the LRT-1 is working on the restroom upgrade, the government should also consider improving other public toilets across the archipelago.

The state of public restrooms says a lot about the level of development in a country. In many parts of the Philippines, including top tourist destinations, there are rarely enough public toilets.

Where the facilities are available, they can be lacking in cleanliness or are downright filthy. Toilet paper and soap for handwashing are rarely available, and sometimes there’s no water from the taps or for flushing.

Typically, only the major shopping malls, retail outlet chains and hotels offer clean, comfortable facilities that deserve to be called
restrooms.

Even in many public schools, restrooms are badly in need of an upgrade. Cleanliness in the premises as well as students’ personal hygiene are often made difficult by the lack of piped water. Regular handwashing is a basic requirement for health, but obviously this can’t be done in restrooms without water.

In a land that is regularly hit by all sorts of natural disasters – typhoons, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions – the lack of clean toilets is also one of the biggest problems at evacuation centers, allowing diseases to spread quickly and putting at risk the vulnerable including infants and the elderly.

Authorities should disabuse themselves of the mindset that people can just relieve themselves against a wall or behind bushes. Restrooms must do justice to the word.