DLSU comfort room wins second place in Maynilad’s first Golden Kubeta Awards

Give that toilet a medal.

Last January 27, 2017, the first floor males’ comfort room of the St. Miguel Hall in De La Salle University won second place in the Golden Kubeta Awards held at the SM Mall of Asia Music Hall. The event consisted of 12 finalists, and the overall winner was the Petron E. Rodriguez comfort room.

Maynilad, in collaboration with WhenInManila.com, launched the Golden Kubeta Awards in November 2016 as an avenue to “promote hygiene and sanitation best practices”. Since then, more than 720,000 social media users were reached and 101 comfort room entries were received.

With a total rating of 100 percent, the entries were assessed based on the following criteria: cleanliness, accessibility, functionality, and responsible water and wastewater management. The campaign, apart from spreading awareness, also aims to “entertain and educate Filipinos to give value to water, sanitation, and health through clean toilets.”

In recent years, the government has developed projects and programs to ensure safe and clean water for Filipinos, but evidently, the country still has a long way to go.

According to the Philippine Institute for Development Studies in September 2016, the current state of economic regulations in the water supply and sanitation sector are not enough to drive investments in local government units (LGU). Among one of the realistic options the government can take is by providing financing incentives to the LGU-operated utilities.

In the past government administrations, water supply and sanitation have been key developmental areas. Recent plans include the Philippine Water Supply Sector Roadmap 2010 Update that aims to expand water coverage in the country by 2025. Another is the Philippine Sustainable Sanitation Roadmap, which aims to expand sanitation accessibility by 2028.

Last January 2016, the Department of Health announced through a report that although 92 million Filipinos have access to water resources, 26 percent still do not have clean and safe toilets. The report further states that this percentage includes Filipinos who still use unimproved facilities like buckets and open-pit latrines. Some who do not have toilet facilities—around seven million—defecate in public places.

Due to poor sanitation, this may usually lead to the contamination of water sources, as well as the proliferation of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid fever. In the long run, these illnesses may also cause intestinal worm infection and malnutrition.

Meanwhile, according to the Department of Education, as of last March 2016, around 3,620 public schools have “substandard” toilets and more than 3,000 of which have no access to safe and clean water.

Recent developments on water supply and sanitation have been abundant. However, additional efforts must still be exerted by the public and commercial sector to expand the developments to a national scale, especially among rural areas.