LUCENA CITY—A nongovernment organization and the local government of Mauban, Quezon, have joined hands in providing a permanent source of potable water to the fishing village of Cagbalete Island in Lamon Bay.
On May 9, Mauban local officials and representatives of the Alliance for Mindanao and Multi-Regional Renewable/Rural Energy Development (Amore) program inaugurated a water pumping system that would supply clean, potable water to more than 2,000 households on the island.
Madelline Romero, Amore information, education and communication manager, told Inquirer in a phone interview on Friday that residents pay P55 for every 20 liters of water, including labor and transportation costs.
“Residents always buy their drinking water from the town or drink water from shallow wells found all over the island,” she said.
She said the two units of 210-watt peak solar photovoltaic panels, which Amore, the Mauban government and Quezon Power (Philippines) Limited Co. installed in the island in January, would provide the electricity to pump water for its 12-cubic-meter concrete reservoir.
The water pump was constructed on the island’s elementary school-annex grounds. It was turned over to barangay officials and school administrators for operation and maintenance, Romero said.
The village teachers will manage the island’s water refilling station inside the school compound and sell the water to the villagers at P25 for a 20-liter container, a P30 savings for residents, Romero said.
“Even if only 5 percent of the total households in the island bought water from the school-managed water refilling station every day, the water system is poised to generate revenue of more than P900,000 annually,” Romero said.
She said the income-generating project would provide the impetus for more development initiatives on the island.
Cagbalete is 45 minutes by boat from the Mauban port if the weather is good.
The Amore program is a rural electrification alliance among the United States Agency for International Development, the Department of Energy, SunPower Foundation and Winrock International.
The group works with rural communities to provide waterless villages access to safe, potable water.
Hundreds of people are taken ill almost everyday in some of the country’s remotest places as a result of lack of potable water.