Water (Tubig)

Saksak diwai

Water, they say will be worth like gold later on, is one resource that luckily our country is rich with. In the birth town of my father, Sibulan (south of Dumaguete) in Negros Oriental, there are several springs in one of the sitios – Tubtubon (means water flowing). The area is blest with several springs where the town folks get their water. I didn’t know of these until when we have to get help from women who are locals when my father had gotten sick. Since then, we get our drinking water from one of the springs, for free.

What I admire most in the sitio is the respect of the residents for the natural resource. It is situated in a mangrove area which is full of saksak trees, a member of family nipa (Nypa fruticans).

The land, where the springs are sited, are privately owned but the owners are generous to share the resource to everyone. Rules have been made by local authorities, and these are followed diligently by the citizens. Amazingly, people come in using 2 or 4 wheel vehicles or carriers to haul carboys, gallons of drinking water and they patiently form a queue, it is first come - first get basis, to get water. But a local ordinance dictates that nobody is allowed to get water for commercial use, i.e., to resell as mineral water.

Admiringly, they are aware that they will lose this natural resource if they develop and destroy the area, like removing the mangrove trees, etc. This trait is not common nowadays. I remember that in early 1990s, when shrimp export was at its peak, hectares of mangrove in Calatrava, Negros Occidental were bulldozed to pave way for shrimp ponds. But eventually, the shrimp industry lost the export market to neighboring Thailand and Indonesia. And in Bacolod City, swamp areas were developed into residential neighborhoods. Naturally, water is scarce and the city is easily flooded.

Water, let us preserve and conserve whatever resources we still have right now before it is very late. It really depends on the people’s conscience whether they become too greedy for today or become better citizens by doing what is morally right.