Thirst, trucks, and a silent telephone

It has been over two years since Iloilo City declared a state of calamity over water scarcity in April 2024. If you ask local officials today, salvation is sitting patiently in the mountains of Calinog. But salvation requires basic administrative competence, and right now, the city hasn’t even picked up the phone.

In July 2024, President Marcos stood at the inauguration of the Jalaur River Multi-Purpose Project (JRMP-II) and promised that part of its reservoir would serve Iloilo City’s bulk water needs. It was a grand, sweeping pledge. Twenty-seven months later, we are still waiting for someone — anyone — to actually make the request. Engr. Jonel Cordero of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA-6) recently confirmed the obvious: the agency has received absolutely zero formal proposals.

The city’s Crisis Management Council keeps publicly floating Jalaur as a viable lifeline. Yet the only official doing the talking seems to be a logistics officer. Where is the mayor on this? Who actually owns this crisis? You cannot shop for a multi-billion-peso lifeline you haven’t formally asked for.

Even if City Hall magically filed the paperwork tomorrow, hauling raw water from Calinog to Iloilo City is a remarkably expensive distraction. Raw reservoir water doesn’t just flow into household taps — it requires intensive, costly treatment. Factor in the trucking expenses, fuel, water quality testing, and the multi-agency gauntlet involving the provincial government, the Metro Iloilo Water District, and the National Water Resources Board. It is a logistical nightmare masquerading as a quick fix.

We should be asking a much harder question. Why are we talking about deploying fleets of water trucks across the province instead of aggressively reducing systemic pipe leaks and managing the municipal supply we already have?

The answer might lie in a staggering administrative failure — the city still does not know the actual size of its water gap. More than two years after a highly publicized calamity declaration, Neil Ravena’s team is reportedly still conducting field surveys to estimate barangay demand. El Niño planning requires hard numbers on projected deficits before the dry season hits, not post-mortem surveys. The city is trying to import water for a deficit it hasn’t even measured. What exactly did the 2024 calamity declaration produce besides a terrifying headline?

Meanwhile, the real stakeholders of the PHP 19.7-billion mega-dam are watching. Jalaur was fundamentally built to irrigate farmlands, promising year-round water for 9,500 new hectares and the rehabilitation of 22,340 existing ones. Right now, the dam is nearly 88 percent complete overall, but the irrigation component is only halfway there, serving a modest 500 hectares.

Where the canals are finished, the results are undeniable. Farmers in Calinog are already pulling a third rice crop in a single cycle. That water is rural livelihood made liquid. Any emergency diversion to the city must not siphon off the share our farmers were promised. We cannot ask the agricultural sector to let their fields go dry just to subsidize urban mismanagement.

The reservoir is full, but local leadership is running on empty.