Neal H.

Cruz
April 4, 2005

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

The fresh water supply of the Philippines is running out. Although there are still sources for the medium
term, even all these will be, in the long run, not enough to satisfy the needs of the country’s burgeoning
population.

How can this be when we are an archipelago surrounded by water? How can that be when wide swaths
of the country are flooded every rainy season?

It is indeed ironic that a country floating in vast amounts of water should suffer from water shortages.
We are like the ancient mariner wailing: "Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink." Because
unfortunately, the unlimited water surrounding us is undrinkable salty sea water.

Of course, desalination plants capable of converting sea water into fresh water are already available. But
the drinking water they produce comes out very expensive because the plants consume too much oil.
That is no problem for desert countries, like Saudi Arabia, which have plenty of oil. Water is more
precious to them than oil. But to tropical countries, like the Philippines, with plenty of greenery and little
oil, that is a problem.

Of course, we have plenty of sunlight that can power the desalination plants, but solar panels are also
expensive and can easily be blown away during typhoons, which are frequent here.

What about ground water? Alas, that is another resource of ours that is also fast dwindling. So many
people-and factories, residences, farms, fishponds, piggeries, and especially golf courses-have been
sucking water from underground aquifers for decades so that the underground water level has gone
down drastically. That is why many wells are going dry.

Worse, in some places, especially in coastal areas, sea water has begun to seep in to replace the fresh
water in the underground aquifers. The wells, therefore, have only salt water.

Even worse, the grounds above these empty aquifers are subsiding because there is no more water
pressure from under to hold them up. We don't notice it, but the ground levels are going down a few
millimeters each year. That is why floods grow increasingly higher on the plains.

Floods! Yes, what happens to the water that regularly inundates the Philippines every rainy season?

Ordinarily, it should sink into the ground and replenish the aquifers. But now most of it just flows
uselessly into the sea. Why?

Because big areas of the earth no longer absorb them like they used to. Mountains are now devoid of
trees. There are no more roots to hold the water. So it flows down the mountainsides in torrents, taking
with it precious topsoil that clogs rivers and streams and, sometimes, bury whole villages below. Too
much concrete and asphalt now coat the surfaces of urban areas, so floodwaters cannot sink into the
ground and just stay on top and flow out into the sea.