El Niño continues to scourge the country, and has already caused P1.4 billion worth of damage to agriculture. This could balloon to P8 billion to 20 billion, depending on how long the weather phenomenon will last.

The current drought, however, is just a manifestation of a bigger, silent crisis affecting the Philippines: a water crisis. Rapid urbanization has contaminated our surface and groundwater resources. According to a 2007 study by the Asian Development Bank, only about a third of our river systems may be used as suitable sources of clean water, and more than half (58 percent) of groundwater sources are now contaminated.

The same study warns that unless we start cleaning up our act, river and groundwater systems will fail by 2025.This coincides with another study, this time by the United Nations, which predicts that by 2025, as much as 66 percent of the entire global population will be experiencing moderate to severe water shortage. Even way back in 1991, nine major cities in the Philippines have already been identified by the Japan International Cooperation Agency as water-critical areas, which include Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, Davao, Angeles, Baguio, Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo and Zamboanga.

A cost-efficient and effective means to address both the water shortage and recharge our groundwater is through rainwater harvesting, a practice already in existence 4,000 years ago, in the Negev desert of Palestine, where rainfall is short and seldom. It is also an ancient practice in India, where rain falls like a deluge, short but torrential.

Rainwater-harvest systems (RHS) collect and store rainwater. There are various rainwater-harvesting systems, from the simple big jars (tempayan) of Malaysia, to India’s catchment basins (ahar) and reservoirs (bandhara) branching out to canals (kalvas), to Thailand’s and Singapore’s roof-catchment systems.

Aside from its obvious purpose as an alternative source of water, RHS also has many other uses and benefits.

First, it can be used to “recharge” groundwater. Catchment basins, for instance, allow rainfall to seep deep into the aquifer and eventually reach groundwater systems. Catchment basins also prevent runoff during heavy rains, and thus lessen the chances of flooding.

Second, a rainwater-harvest system may be used as a backup source of water in times of calamity. Japan, for instance, uses harvested rainwater for firefighting purposes, especially during earthquakes.

Third, a rainwater-harvest system can serve many agricultural purposes. In India, it has been used to irrigate farmlands, where indigenous reservoirs and canals are connected directly to farms. Kenya, on the other hand, is looking at using RHS to cultivate fish and as a source of water for other livestock.

Last, rainwater-harvest systems generate employment. In Europe, where the practice is gaining ground, the RHS industry has created as much as 50,000 jobs, and this is expected to double within the next three years.

We already have a law mandating the use and promotion of rainwater-harvest systems in the country. Republic Act (RA) 6716 authorizes the Department of Public Works and Highways to construct water wells, springs and rainwater collectors in every barangay in the Philippines, and rehabilitate existing ones. The Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Soils and Water Management has tremendous capability to do this, as well. The law was passed 20 years ago, in 1989, but we have yet to see its implementation. Supposedly, the construction of rainwater collectors should have begun a month after RA 6716 was published, or around June of 1989. The law even provides for a period to complete the project, which is within two years of its passage. Had the law been followed, each barangay would have had one or more rainwater collectors by June 1991. Thus, disastrous floods such as from last year’s typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng and the current shortage of water would have been avoided—or mitigated, at the very least. Having experienced these costly disasters, government should implement RA 6716, and immediately.

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