ANGELES CITY — Members of the Angeles City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (ACDRRMC) chaired by Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan have placed Barangays Sapangbato and Margot under a state of calamity due to an acute shortage of water supply.
The pronouncement was made on Thursday by Acting Mayor Bryan Matthew Nepomuceno in the presence of the members of the body with the representatives from the city council, concerned villages, public health and safety sector, and water utility service providers.
In recent weeks, residents can only get water from their faucets from 9 p.m. to 12 midnight.
According to Angeles City Water District (ACWD), they purchased their water supply from Clark Water Corporation (CWC), which reduced its water allocation to these two barangays by more than 50 percent.
CWC head for Business Operations Joe-jit Velasquez, however, said that the corporation did not drastically cut the water supply in the said barangays.
In fact, Velasquez said the CWC still services the villages at 512 cubic meters of water for Sapangbato (servicing from 9 p.m. to 12 midnight) and 42 cubic meters of water for Margot (servicing from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.).
“In as much as we want to continue the services of the CWC to the constituents of Angeles City, the water supply is really not enough. We have to cut short our water supply until such time that we can fully recover,” Velasquez said.
City Administrator Dennis Albert Pamintuan said the water utility service companies and the ACDRRMC should plan immediate interventions and long-term solutions since the residents were now faced with health problems.
The ACWD, for its part, vowed to expedite the purchase and the construction of additional water pumps which are to be put up in each of the two heavily affected villages.
Representatives from the ACWD said that the pumps need three to four months to be erected and to be fully operational.
While the construction is ongoing, the city government has called on all the water utility service providers in the city and asked them to provide water tankers where each can deliver up to 200 cubic meters per day.
There are at least seven water tankers servicing the two barangays with non-stop rations.
The CWC, on the other hand, vowed to extend its water supply servicing hours from 6 p.m. to 12 midnight.
The city government will also convene its Water Resources Board to create a technical working group to find solution to the crisis. (Ric Sapnu/PNA)
