AS the water shortage starts to bear down on parts of Metro Manila, affected communities start to look toward the divine and the government to solve the crisis.
In an issuance on Thursday, Archbishop Luis Antonio G. Cardinal Tagle appealed to members of the clergy, superiors of religious communities and heads of the secular institutes to pray for rain.
“Our relief will come from nature. And so we implore the Master of all creations God, our Father, at whose command the winds and the sea obey, to send us rain,” Tagle said.
The prelate said the prayer for rain can be included into the daily and Sunday Prayer of the Faithful of the Mass.
“Let us together storm the heavens with our supplications, that God’s mercy be upon us and send us rain we need,” he added.
For its part, the militant labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) said the solution for the prevailing water shortage will come from the government.
KMU Executive Vice Chairman Lito Ustarez said the long-term solution for the crisis will be in the consolidation of Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), Local Water Utilities Administration(LWUA), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and National Water Resources Board into a single “service-oriented and pro-government” agency.
“If the Duterte government wants to create a long-term solution for water shortage, it should give the national government and communitybased water groups more control over water resources, supply and infrastructure,” Ustarez said in a statement.
Several areas in the National Capital Region suffered water service interruptions as water concessionaires struggled to make existing water supplies in their dams last throughout the entire El Niño dry spell. KMU, however, insisted the water shortage in NCR should be blamed on Manila Water’s lack of foresight.
“The promise of privatizing water utilities in 1990s was that private enterprises would be providing better service such that water shortage would be a thing of the past. But here we are still suffering the same fate we had two decades ago but paying more than double,” Ustarez said.