Source: Bohol Standard, 11/4/07 issue
It would be a disaster if tourists swimming in Bohol’s pristine seas find themselves, alongside with human wastes floating in the sea because many coastal towns and islands have unsanitary or no toilets at all.
The urgency of putting up the right interventions to arrest the sanitation issue in the islets of northern Bohol surfaced Tuesday as concerned residents and non-government organizations shrug why there isn’t much action from government to save the northern seas from fecal coliform contamination and Danajon from an ecological disaster.
And just as the residents of Nocnocan island in Talibon are concerned, Bohol local officials apparently use the bureaucracy as convenient escape to tarry in addressing the stinking issue of water and sanitation in Talibon and Ubay, observers have aired.
Population at Nocnocan is 1981, all cramped in 7 clustered puroks of a total of 309 households. Of them, 262 of the households do not have sanitary toilets or plain toilets at all, reports Ms. Jocelyn Cabanes during the Bohol Press Day at Jjs Seafoods Tuesday.
Cabanes, Nocnocan Elementary School grade II teacher raised the issue of urgency in helping the island people arrest the problem of sanitation as it balloons daily.
“Look at how we pollute our seawater?†she asked.
In the island, you multiply 262 families by 5 people on the average, and that’s the waste (human excreta) that finds its way to the sea every day.
While some 55 families own toilets, these are either unsanitary or water reliant toilets that again impact on the water supply, she added.
The wastes which are not properly disposed can attract flies which also hop on the food, bringing sickness, malnutrition and more poverty, she stressed as she explains the need to immediately address water and sanitation.
“Sanitation refers to the hygienic and proper management and collection, disposal or reuse of human excreta and community liquid wastes to safeguard the health of individuals and communitiesâ€, the Philippines Sanitation and Sourcebook Aid defines.
Just as sanitation programs in the island aim to improve health conditions, promote dignity and enhance quality of human life as well as protect the environment, in Nocnocan, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG)-German Development Foundation (GTZ) piloted the non-water reliant sanitation systems, owing to the fact that water still remains a top problem in the island, said Vicente Delector Jr. of the GTZ.
In this line, a technology called the Urine Diversion Dry Toilet (UDDT) was promoted to conserve on the scarce water supply and control liquid seepage into the sea.
UDDT is an alternative toilet system that uses a double-vault dry toilet which is easily adaptable to diverse cultural needs. A fundamental principle in the system is urine diversion and adequate dessication in an alkaline environment.
The dry toilet consists of two vaults: one in use and the other inactive. The two-receptacle toilet seat facilitates the diversion of urine which passes through a hose and is stored for future fertilizer use while the excrement, which falls into the other chamber is covered with lime or ash and soil after each use.
The ecological dry toilet saves water, is simple and inexpensive to install, requires little space, and can be installed inside or outside of the house. As an additional benefit, the user regularly harvests organic soil conditioner, free of pathogenic organisms, as well as a constant flow of natural fertilizer (urine), Delector emphasizes.
Provincial Planning and Development Administrative Officer and lawyer John Titus Vistal, during the activity’s opening rites said that Bohol has been officially working on ecological sanitation protect for four years.
DILD-GTZ Water and sanitation program has been into technically assisting communities, in this case, Nocnocan as it implemented the pilot project, and in fact non-government organizations who saw the environmental protection component of the project have intended to put up the technology in their assisted communities, reported GTZ authorities here in Bohol.
On the other hand, Capitol, in its fourth year of project involvement has yet to apportion a budget to immediately assist and arrest the sanitation problems of the island communities.
BEMO and the PPDO agree that they have still to lobby for more funds for the procurement of the UDDT and its immediate installation in Ubay and Talibon.
The Poverty Data Monitoring System, a unique data collection and retrieval toll for Bohol planners show that both towns and their island barangays still hug the lines of the towns with barely passable sanitary toilets.
The implications could be rather unnerving with the reality of water contamination spreading in the seas where seaweeds are grown off Danajon, Bohol’s rarest marine environment.
In the school in Nocnocan, Cabanes said only two classrooms have toilets. In her class in Grade 2, some kids have been telling her its their first time to use a sanitary toilet. The idea of bringing eco-sanitation into the schools is one mission she commits, she said.
Dirty, that’s how she capped it, and her efforts may just be bucket in an ocean.
Unless something is done as fast, the lives of the community here may be going foul. (rachiu/PIA)
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