ILOILO – One way to ensure that each household in this province has a sanitary toilet is to make such mandatory under a provincial ordinance, according to Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) member Liecel Mondejar-Seville.
The objective, she said, is for all of the province’s 1,721 barangays to achieve “zero open defecation” status.
Many poor families do not have the means to have sanitary toilets thus discouraging the unhygienic practice of relieving themselves just anywhere is an enormous challenge, according to Dr. Patricia Grace Trabado, Provincial Health Office (PHO) chief.
Seville, chairperson of the SP committee on health and sanitation, said she would draft a “Zero Open Defecation Ordinance.”
PHO started the campaign to eliminate the unhealthy exercise of open defecation in the barangay and municipal level in 2015. So far, 751 achieved “zero open defecation” status.
Trabado, however, clarified that these villages merely hurdled “level 1” of the campaign – residents sharing sanitary toilets.
Seville said her proposed “Zero Open Defecation Ordinance” would also require local government units (LGUs) to have sustainable sanitation.
“Wala gid naga-release sang waste anywhere,” said Seville.
PHO has set a higher goal – level 2, or ensuring that each household has its own sanitary toilets.
This is the most ideal, said Trabado, to avert environmental contamination and water-borne diseases.
Lack of funds should not hinder LGUs from achieving “zero open defecation” status, said Seville, former mayor of New Lucena town.
Despite the LGU’s budgetary constraints, “99 percent” of New Lucena’s households have their own sanitary toilets, revealed Seville.
When she was still mayor of the fourth-class municipality, Seville said, she devised a scheme.
“We counterpart with the barangays. Ma-purchase ang barangay sang 10 toilets, dugangan sang LGU sang 10 man. Through this, we were able to increase the percentage of households with sanitary toilets,” said Seville.
There were 5,389 households in New Lucena. Only one percent of these were left practicing toilet sharing, said Seville.
With the provincial government going out of its way to distribute free toilet bowls to municipalities, Seville said, LGUs now are getting more help to achieve “zero open defecation” status.
As to the penalties for violation of her proposed “Zero Open Defecation Ordinance”, Seville said there must be a thorough discussion.
Even the processes of enforcement and monitoring must be studied carefully, she added.
According to Trabado, PHO’s goal is for 50 percent of Iloilo towns to achieve zero open defecation status by the end of this year.
She urged local government units to at least put up accessible public sanitary toilets.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), approximately seven million Filipinos still practice open defecation, mostly in rural areas.
“When our neighbors defecate in the open, in fields and waterways, our children will more likely experience frequent bouts of diarrhea, have worm infections, and grow up stunted and undernourished,” said UNICEF country representative Lotta Sylwander./PN
its good.