MANILA, Philippines—The country’s National Water Resources Board (NWRB) has launched an Internet portal to coordinate government moves to solve an impending water crisis.

The country’s water problems could raise not just the price of water in the coming years but also the number of people who die due to water-borne diseases, said NWRB executive director Ramon Alikpala at the launch of the new information site for the water supply and sanitation sector (http://philwatsan.org.ph).

Alikpala said the good news was that “after five years of no interest in the water sector, there is now a flurry of activity in Congress regarding the sector’s issues and problems,” and the portal aimed at facilitating information exchange was an additional step.

He said that in Southeast Asia, the Philippines was second to last in 2002 in terms of amount of water per person.

“However, we must note that since then, Thailand—the last country listed in the 2002 study—has significantly reduced its population [and] the Philippines could now be at the bottom of the list,” Alikpala said.

He said that aside from access to water, pollution was also a big problem.

The study said that because most houses were not connected to a sewerage system, the groundwater had become contaminated with effluents from septic tanks. Only seven percent of Metro Manila is covered by a sewerage system.