By Joel B. Belinan
Our Ananda Marga Guru and propounder of Progressive Utilization Theory and the Neo-Humanist Ideology, Shrii Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar, also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, had predicted as early as 35 years ago that water will soon become the most scarcest and yet very important resource in the entire globe. It will be scarce that it will even be the cause of conflicts among men and nations. This according to him is due to the mismanagement of the world’s water resources, whether inland or in the ocean.
In 1990 during my first time to travel abroad, particularly, to Singapore and India, one of the first things I observed were the people’s dependence on bottled water for their drinking needs. Especially when going around India, one could not avoid buying bottled water due to the humidity and the hot temperature in most parts of the country. I murmured to myself that such scenario should not happen in the Philippines, at least, for a long time. But how wrong I was. After the Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption that polluted the atmosphere with dust, the sales of bottled water in the country immediately multiplied tenfold.
These days it cannot be denied that 90% of our drinking water comes from water purification stations, not only in urban areas but even in the provinces. This means that gone were the days when we could rely on tap water or from those deep wells that are still popular in the rural areas for our drinking needs. And this also affirms that our tap water is that polluted due to human activities so it needs to be purified first before we can drink it.
Likewise, our water for irrigation is also under threat of becoming scarce. Best example here is the Cordillera which is actually the watershed cradle of Northern Luzon. As had been pointed out by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, 13 major river systems that flow to Regions I, II and III emanate from the Cordillera mountain ranges. These include the historic Agno river that is now host to 3 major hydro dams and Irrigation systems, the famous Chico River, Abra River, Bued River, Naguilian River, Ibulao River, Abulog River, Saltan River, Amburayan River, Asin River, Apayao River, Ziffu- Mallig River and Magat River. There are smaller rivers that emanate from our region but these are the ones that have been listed as the major rivers by the DENR. Unfortunately, while during the rainy season there is so much water flowing on these rivers down to the lowlands, causing floods in low lying communities, they are almost dry during summer.
Historically, people built communities where there was water. Unfortunately when the natural flow of rivers had been disturbed due to human activities, those in the lowlands become the victims of floods year in and year out. Nowadays, these rivers from the Cordillera are generally silted due to environmental degradation in their watershed areas up here in the mountain. For example the Chico River whose headwaters start from the Mt. Data Plateau in Bauko, Mountain Province is now the subject of a massive government dredging and flood control project in its Tabuk City portion. This is because, every year the silted water from upstream have been destroying hundreds if not thousands of hectares of farm lands along its banks in the so called rice granary of the Cordillera.
The watershed of these river systems are the once thickly forested mountains but have been greatly denuded due to human activities. For instance, the oldest lumber company in the Cordillera was located at Km. 102 at Mt. Data, Bauko, Mtn. Province where the headwater of the Chico River is located. The Abra River’s headwater is also found at the Mt. Data Plateau that was denuded and deforested due to the presence of Lepanto Mines in Mankayan, Benguet not to mention the small scale mining activities in scattered sites around it.
Magat River and the Agno River also find their headwaters at the Mount Data Plateau. As they say, these four major rivers’ headwaters are actually less than four kilometers away from each other. Their sorry states, reflect the condition of Mt. Data and its importance.
In 2006 and 2007, I together with my friend Clint Taynan were commissioned by then National Irrigation Administration (NIA) Regional Manager Abraham Akilit (now the mayor of Bauko) to conduct a photo and video documentation of the major rivers of the Cordillera, hence, I know what I am talking about.
The very summit of the Mt. Data Plateau is now home to thousands of hectares of vegetable gardens such that my friend Clint captioned one of our photos on these as “the gardens in the sky.” What remains of the once forest covered mountain is just a small portion where the drinking water of the communities downstream comes from. And 14 years since that documentation, I have not seen nor heard of any government program that would address the problem. ** (More on this topic next week.)
