by EDWIN GENERAL

KAHIKUKUK, BANGUIGUI, SULU — Asaali Muhalli is no ancient mariner, but there was a time when his lament was practically an echo of that of the protagonist in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous poem: “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”

	Kahikukuk residents now enjoy access to safe drinking water. [photo courtesy of AMORE]

Muhalli, a 40-something schoolteacher, has lived in this remote village since birth. He recalls, “I lived on an island surrounded by water, yet ironically, our life was without drinking water.”

But for the last two years, Muhalli and the rest of the residents here have had no reason to sigh — at least not over the lack of potable water. In September 2006, Kahikukuk became the beneficiary of a solar-powered system to supply drinkable water to the entire village, and life here has not been the same since. For one, says Muhalli, water-borne diseases are no longer as common as before. For another, villagers have stopped digging just about anywhere they could think of in their desperation to tap an underground water source.

Muhalli says that one of his neighbors began digging a hole in his own backyard, hoping to strike water. Instead, the neighbor unearthed a pile of human skeletons. According to Muhalli, his neighbor decided to transfer house posthaste.

	Location map of Banguigui (formerly Tongkil), Sulu courtesy of Wikipedia

Impoverished communities elsewhere in the country probably do not share Kahikukuk’s near-moonscape past, but many (if not all) of them can certainly sympathize with its former thirst for potable water. In fact, many areas in the Philippines still lack access to safe drinking water, which has led to a significant incidence of water-borne illnesses, among other things. Across the province of Sulu, of which this island is part, only 26.8 percent of families have safe water to drink, according to the 2002 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS); from all indications, that figure is not going to improve significantly anytime soon.

It’s no wonder then that the government itself has cautiously predicted that the country has a “medium” chance of achieving the target of halving the proportion of the Philippine population without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. The target falls under the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of Environment Sustainability that the Philippines is committed to meeting seven years from now. Numbering eight in all, the MDGs, which range from education to health, to food security, are part of a global initiative to combat poverty.

The initiative stresses the cooperation of aid agencies, national governments, and the private sector in the effort. Indeed, Kahikukuk may not have gotten its rather unique water system had such cooperation been absent. Banguingui Mayor Hadji Wahid Sahidulla himself says that with his local government’s meager budget, “we cannot afford to develop such a project, considering the many immediate needs (of) our constituents.”

LOCATED ABOUT five hours away from Zamboanga City by motorboat, Kahikukuk is part of the Tongkil group of islands in Sulu. It is home to some 30,000 Samal-Banguigui natives who depend largely on fishing and seaweed farming for their livelihood. Some families also operate motorboats that ferry people to nearby islands, but even then many households here often can afford to have only two meals per day.

Kahikukuk’s story illustrates how the lack of access to potable water can make an already poor community even more impoverished. Children suffering from water-borne illnesses like cholera and diarrhea, for example, lost days — sometimes weeks — of school, while similarly stricken adults were unable to work.

	SOLAR-powered water system in Kahikukuk. [photo courtesy of AMORE]

Muhalli says that as far as he knows, at least three children died in the village because of some disease that was later traced to unclean water. Banguigui Island Municipality health statistics also show diarrhea as among the top three causes of infant morbidity in the area.

A father of two boys, Muhalli adds that his family’s paltry household budget shrank even more each time they bought water that was brought in from neighboring Basilan. Peddlers sold each 20-gallon container for P25; normally, says Muhalli, one household would consume some 10 containers each day.

The alternative was to fetch water from either any of the makeshift deep wells that still dot the island or the main water source that was about an hour’s walk from the village. That source, a very deep open well located near the foot of a hill, is adjacent to a muddy area where cows like to wallow.

During the rainy season, the well would overflow and the surrounding field would be flooded. The result was water that was murky with soil and animal dung. But the water did not necessarily clear up whenever the sun was out.

“I could waste a whole day just to fill two containers and even then the water was brown,” says Ernilisa Jurail, a 28-year-old mother of four, recalling her long treks to fetch water for her family. “I also had nothing clean to wear. I washed my clothes and took a bath only once a week.”

The backyard wells were no better, perhaps because many families also maintained their latrines in the same area. Experts point out that even professionally built tube wells are easily contaminated when these are located less than 30 meters away from animal ditches, latrines, stagnant waters, garbage, and poor drainages.

Many of the families thus tried to save rainwater in huge drums and jars. But they had a hard time keeping this free from mosquito larvae, says Muhalli, and so they would try to filter the water through cloth and boil it before drinking it. He also recalls how some women and children would brave going to Abu Sayyaf-infested Basilan just to get potable water.