3 gov’t agencies join forces for water, sanitation program
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Health (DOH) and National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) agreed on Wednesday to jointly implement the government’s water and sanitation program in waterless municipalities nationwide.
DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo, Health Secretary Enrique Ona and NAPC Secretary General Jose Eliseo M. Rocamora signed an agreement for closer collaborative efforts among the parties as executing agencies of the priority water and sanitation program of the Aquino administration.
The government is implementing the President’s Priority Program on Water (P3W) as part of the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) and to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe potable water and basic sanitation.
Robredo said all partner agencies have agreed to prioritize the implementation of water and sanitation projects in waterless municipalities outside of Metro Manila, consistent with NAPC poverty criteria and DILG good-house-keeping criteria for local government units (LGUs).
From the Philippine Water Supply Sector Roadmap, statistics showed that there are 432 waterless municipalities outside of Metro Manila, with more than 1.5 million households without access to safe drinking water.
The term “waterless municipalities” refers to municipalities with less than 50 percent service coverage.
The breakdown of the 432 waterless towns per region are as follows: 12 in Region I; eight in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR); 29 in Region II; 10 in Region III; 18 in Region IV-A; 10 in Region IV-B; 28 in Region V; 74 in Region VI; 36 in Region VII; 22 in Region VIII; 34 in Region IX; 28 in Region X; 14 in Region XI; 19 in Region XII; 15 in Region XIII; and 75 in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Under the agreement, the NAPC shall serve as the lead coordinating agency in the implementation of the program, and shall ensure that priority be given to the barangays in municipalities with the highest density of poor households.*PNA
