Social Marketing
Information and Education Specialist Robert C. Bastillo who was
present in the LINAW launching said that of all the six pilot cities
of LINAW in the country, Calbayog is the only city to have produced a
digifilm and a play aside from its nice billboards and a powerful
radio plug.
“It’s a very powerful
film and the theater production is very artistic, very engaging and
provocative,” he said.
Jonas Lim, who made
the script and direction said that in Salog, a 25-minute
digifilm he shows the effect of polluted river to our health while in
Inodoro which lasts for 1 hour and 10 minutes, he compared our
life with that of a toilet bowl which looks good but is full of
bacteria inside.
“Calbayog is chosen to
present at the International Summit of LINAW this August and the film
will be toured in Asia,” Lim said.
Aimed at promoting
awareness and concern towards our environment particularly on the
issue of wastewater management, LINAW Technical Working Group launched
a series of presentations at the Nijaga Park and in different schools
which kicked off July 16 and ended last Friday. It will also be shown
in different barangays.
Employees and students
interviewed after the show appreciated the film and said that it is
the best medium to make the public aware of how important it is to
protect our rivers. They also learned that there are 12 people who die
everyday of water-borne diseases in the Philippines as presented in
the play.
The film also showed
the ideal design of a septic tank having 3 chambers with a concrete
flooring and the call for a 3-5 years regular dislodging.
Calbayog is one of the
6 pilot cities in the country under the LINAW project supported by the
USAID. Other project sites are the cities of Dumaguete, Iloilo,
Muntinlupa, Naga and Malaybalay. These cities are engaged in
identifying and developing solutions to wastewater pollution.
Mayor Mel Senen
Sarmiento told local media that the city will come up with a
decentralized wastewater treatment system. “Tama na seguro an
basketball court, waiting shed, ini yana an angay tutukan…” he
stressed.
According to Bastillo,
a self-initiative is needed to reduce wastewater pollution caused by
an estimated 35 thousand household of the city.
He added that
wastewater problem is rampant throughout the country and in
Asia, the
Philippines have the lowest coverage of the sewerage system.
“Only 7 per cent of
the entire country is covered by a sewerage system na ang ibig sabihin,
ang dumi galing sa kubeta ay hindi tumutuloy sa isang sistema ng pipes
that go to a treatment plant. Our wastewater flows into the rivers,”
Bastillo explained.
The city’s LINAW
Technical Working Group head Engr. Oscar Hugo revealed that based on
the findings of the consultants, the Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD)
content of our rivers are high. The tolerable content is 50 while the
city got 90 to 120. BOD is used to determine the quality of a water
source.
The proposed
facilities for the city are the Wastewater Treatment Plant beside the
wet market; a Water Lagoon Wastewater Treatment System at the Tomalon
Estate in Brgy. Gadgaran which is also the target location of the new
slaughterhouse and the Communal Wastewater Treatment at Brgy.
Caballero.
As of now, the city
has an operational Cocopit Biofilter facility processing wastewater at
the SOS Children’s Village and is awaiting for a Septage Management
Ordinance.
