by Elias O. Baquero, originally posted on January 05, 2017

A PRIVATE firm has been extracting water in the northern town of Carmen and supplying it in bulk to the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD).

But residents of Barangay Cogon, who pay the Carmen Municipal Water System P35 a month, are complaining that no water is coming out of their faucet.

Unmet demand

Cogon Barangay Captain Rene Mahilum said businesses in his barangay are also complaining about the lack of water.

He said their situation is ironic because the water from the reservoir passes their barangay, yet they only have water at 5 a.m. and only for one hour.

A press statement from a concerned citizen said that an unnamed source from the municipal water system revealed that the town’s water demand is about 104,000 cubic meters per day, but production is only 52,000 cubic meters.

If the figure is right, then the demand is about one-third of the demand of Metro Cebu, which include the cities of Talisay, Mandaue, Cebu and Lapu-Lapu and the towns of Minglanilla, Consolacion, Liloan and Cordova under MCWD, at 300,000 cubic meters.

Politicized

MCWD generates more than 200,000 cubic meters of water a day and supplies it to about 42 percent of Metro Cebu residents.

Meanwhile, Mahilum said Carmen Mayor Gerald Villamor is determined to allow a private firm to put up parallel water connections to solve their problem, but the municipal council blocked the proposal.

Villamor could not be contacted for his comment at press time. “This is issue has been politicized in the town already,” Mahilum said. Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 06, 2017.