Pooling resources

Whenever there is a clamor by towns for additional funds for their projects, the common response by provincial governments like the Capitol of Cebu would be kurambos or pooling of resources.

There is sound logic to this arrangement and if followed to the letter can serve to enhance partnership between the towns and the Capitol as well as spread development in the countryside without stretching resources too thinly to the disadvantage of a particular town.

A partnership rather than outright dependence on the Capitol would instill a sense of independence among small local government units (LGUs). It is this same logic that has driven the Capitol to insist that local governments take responsibility for their waterworks system.

Local government responsibility for the waterworks system has gained more favor after towns like Daanbantayan faced problems with their water district which was privately managed.

But that’s not true in every case. Take for example the recent typhoid outbreak in Alegria town where 100 patients were confined in a hospital. Unconfirmed reports state that the town’s water supply had something to do with the outbreak and tests were done to verify this.

But even without knowing whether the waterworks system had anything to do with the outbreak, one only has to look at the town’s water supply to see the disparity of cooperation between the province and the town.

Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia said the Capitol allocated several pipes for Alegria’s waterworks project. What she may have overlooked or wasn’t told about by her people that Alegria residents were all too familiar with was that they were old pipes dug out from an area near the cemetery site.

The concrete water tank also had a thin white film on the water’s surface that is believed to be undissolved chlorine. Doctors have yet to confirm whether that made the residents sick but there would be little surprise if it did.

Due to the outbreak, Alegria town officials and the Capitol are playing catch-up, allocating precious resources to treat the victims when the problem would have been solved or at least reduced if there is a proper waterworks system.

As pointed out previously, the Capitol may have over several billion pesos in budget but there is some serious doubt on whether even a fraction of that went to build Alegria’s water system project.

Despite that, the Alegria municipal government could have built a better water system. As it is, both of them failed their constituents. We could only hope that no one has to die from typhoid fever to convince the local and provincial officials to rebuild that water supply project.