State of the toilet
Improving, very slowly
LAST May 13, 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its “Progress on sanitation and drinking water 2013 update” during which it warned that some 2.4 billion people, or one-third of the world’s population will remain without access to improved sanitation by 2015.
The city government through its Task Force Inidoro claims that only 11% do not have access to sanitation facility. The problem is, no one can give the numbers.
Sun. Star Davao asked for a copy of the State of the Children Report and only got a 2010 edition as the latest and nowhere in that report is there any
mention about the children who do not have access to a sanitary toilet nor safe drinking water. These two very vital components of healthy living go hand in hand. Without a sanitary toilet, drinking water can easily be contaminated.
TREATING THE DISEASE, NOT THE CAUSE
An entry on “Deworming and control of diarrheal disease” only stated (quoted as is without editing):
“In terms of the number of children given with ORT, the figures posted in 2009 double than that of 2008 with 2,165 from 1,053 in the preceding year. The increased trend, however, is similarly observed in terms of the number of children found out with diarrhea with 2,224 in 2009 from 1,407 in 2008. But when it comes to mortality from diarrheal disease, the figures showed consistent decrease from 31 in 2007 to 24 in 2008 and further down to 20 in 2009.”
It is the only entry in the main report of the State of the Children of Davao City 2010 that has a close link to access to sanitary facilities.
What it says is that diarrheal deaths are down, but diarrhea occurrence is increasing, almost doubling in fact. What it also says is that diarrhea, one of the gastro-intestinal diseases that plague children who live in unsanitary conditions is responded to with oral rehydration treatment (ORT), a cure, not a prevention.
Sun.Star looked into the State of the Children because the format of this report as pushed by the Unicef must include access of children to sanitary facilities. No other comprehensive report tackles this concern.
OPEN DEFECATION AND UNIMPROVED TOILETS
Back to the newly released report, which is a collaboration of WHO and the Unicef, it showed that Philippines in general still have 3% of its urban population (or a total of 1.39-million) and 12% of its rural population (or a total of 5.80-million) still defecate anywhere.
Total percentage of those who practice open defecation is 8% of its 94.85million people or around 7.5-million.
Assuming that the percentage across the country is 8% open defecation, then of the 1.44-million population of Davao City, around 115,200 defecate anywhere.
But that’s not all, because open defecation is just the worst form of lack of access to sanitary toilet facilities. The other forms that do not meet minimum standards aside from open defecation are the unimproved and shared.
Open defecation is defined as “when human faeces are disposed of in fields, forests, bushes, open bodies of water, beaches and the open spaced or disposed of with solid waste.”
Unimproved facilities is defined as those that “do not ensure hygienic separation of human excreta from human contact/ Unimproved facilities include pit latrines without a slab or platform, hanging latrines, and bucket latrines.”
The WHO/Unicef report further states, shared sanitation facilities are “sanitation facilities of an otherwise acceptable type shared between two or more households. Only facilities that are not shared or not public are considered improved.”
According to WHO, 16% of the national population only have access to shared toilet facilities, which it does not consider as sanitary enough, and 2% have unimproved facilities.
Overall, national figures show 26% of the total population have unsanitary toilet facilities. For the whole Philippines that is 24.6-million and for Davao City, that is 374,400 people.
But this is already an improved figure from 2000 where national average of those who were into open defecation was 12%, those with unimproved facilities was 9% and those with shared was 14%. What this figures who is that there are now those who have access to shared toilets. Which, sadly, still does not meet the minimum standard for an improved access to sanitary facilities.
The problem in Davao City is, the actual data are just not there. There are estimates, there are percentages given. But no census no database.
For as long as the numbers are not gathered, however, it will be very difficult for the city and anyone who may be interested to get a good grasp of the problem. Without the numbers, we can only assume that the warning WHO and Unicef is raising applies equally to our people and our city.