2 Angeles City villages under state of calamity

ANGELES CITY— Two villages here have been placed under a state of calamity yesterday due to severe shortage of potable water.

Barangays Sapangbato and Margot have been placed under a state of calamity by the Angeles City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (ACDRRMC) after a meeting led by Acting Mayor Bryan Matthew Nepomuceno with representatives from the city council, concerned villages, public health and safety sector, and water utility service providers.

It was learned during the meeting that in the past weeks, residents

can only get water from their faucets from 9:00 pm to 12:00 midnight.

Officials from the Angeles City Water District (ACWD) disclosed they purchased their water supply from Clark Water Corporation (CWC), which currently reduced its water allocation to these two barangays by more than 50 percent.

CWC Head for Business Operations Joe-jit Velasquez affirmed that the corporation did not drastically cut the water supply in the said barangays. In fact, the CWC still services the villages at 512 cubic meters of water for Sapangbato (servicing from 9:00 pm to 12 midnight) and 42 cubic meters of water for Margot (servicing from 9:00 pm to 3:00 am).

“In as much as we want to continue the services of the CWC to the constituents of Angeles City, the water supply is really not enough. We have to cut short our water supply until such time that we can fully recover,” said Velasquez.

However, City Administrator Dennis Albert Pamintuan said that the supply is not enough, and that the water utility service companies and the ACDRRMC should plan immediate interventions and long-term solutions since the residents are now faced with health problems.

The ACWD vowed to expedite the purchase and the construction of additional water pumps which are to be put up in each of the two heavily affected villages. Representatives from the ACWD said that the pumps need three to four months to be erected and to be fully operational.

While the construction is ongoing, the city government have called on all the water utility service providers in the city and asked them to provide water tankers where each can deliver up to 200 cubic meters per day. There are at least seven water tankers servicing the two barangays with non-stop rations. The CWC, on the other hand, vowed to extend their water supply servicing hours from 6:00 pm to 12 midnight.

The city government will also convene its Water Resources Board to create the technical working group for the said crisis. While barangay officials were tasked to monitor the sale of drinking water for possible opportunism.

Meanwhile, Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, who is currently in Malaysia for the United Nations Conference, expressed his eagerness to talk with the heads of the CWC which is a subsidiary of the Manila Water Philippines Ventures.

The mayor also urged the private sector to extend a hand to the residents of the two villages who are currently in dire need of potable drinking water.

“We will conduct public dialogues with the stakeholders and the residents of the villages to explain the real scenario behind the recent water shortage we are experiencing right now,” the mayor said.

Before the assembly was adjourned, the body led by Acting Mayor Nepomuceno declared the two villages in the upland portion of the city under the state of calamity. The declaration will allow the city to use its calamity fund to promptly attend to the needs of the constituents in the said affected areas.