Tags: Film, Visual arts
By Alexander Villafania
SAN JUAN CITY, METRO MANILA – Just recently, a campaign called Water Stories: Films for Progress was started in an effort to advocate water conservation and clean water distribution in underserved, rural regions in the Philippines.
This particular project involved 10 short films made by communication students from 10 different universities. Each video is only five minutes long. They highlight stories of places where there are no water services, the difficulty of people to find clean water, as well as efforts by local government institutions to provide water services to families in remote areas.
The schools that participated in creating short films are Assumption College San Lorenzo, Ateneo De Manila University, Colegio de San Juan de Letran, College of St. Benilde-School fo Design and Arts, Mapua Institute of Technology, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, San Sebastian Recoletos, Silliman University, and Xavier University.
The water crisis that most people know usually involves water shortages in areas serviced by water distribution networks. But what they do not know is that there are a disparate number of rural poor Filipino families that have neither water services nor clean water for drinking.
Many of them are in remote and rural places where water distribution services are unavailable. In fact, nearly 16 million Filipinos have no access to clean drinking water. Affected areas are often among the poorest communities in the country who have little government support for them. As of the end of 2009, 342 rural municipalities are yet to be provided with safe water to drink.
Kathleen Mangune, program officer for the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) said that one of the main problems in underserved rural residents is the lack of knowledge among local government unit (LGU) officials. While public budget is also a problem, she stressed that LGU officials must also realize that ensuring the health and safety of their constituents would mean more productive residents.
But instead of forcing government officials to enact stop-gap measures that might turn out to be unnecessary for their constituents, NEDA and several other government and non-government organizations have come together to use digital means to spread the word about the country’s real water crisis and also to get all Filipinos to be part of the solution.
Mangune stressed that they will be using social networks for their advocacy campaign. “These new online platforms could spur other people to help poor Filipinos who deserve to have better lives.”
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