More
than a month after the super typhoon Yolanda landed on the country, relief
operations are still ongoing. With only a few days left in the year 2013, I
believe that the government has also started the rehabilitation projects in the
affected areas. During such unfortunate events, everyone is willing to help in every
way they could especially in providing the basic needs. Water is the most
essential need since it could be used in so many ways. A person could survive
without food for days, but not without water. It is also used to clean wounds
to prevent further infection and for other hygienic purposes. As we all know,
bottled mineral water is included in every pack of relief goods delivered to
each family. This is okay for the first few days since bottled water could be
transported in packs but it is not economical to continue using these in the
long run, and also not environmental due to all the plastic residue.
Few
days ago, I found an article published from 05 December on the website of The
Philippine Star. This is about the mobile treatment plant of the Manila Water Co. being used to
provide clean and potable water to the Yolanda victims. According to the said
article, this mobile treatment plant could turn raw water, including seawater,
into potable drinking water. This is a good start in maximizing the technology
available in the country so that we do not need to fully depend on what the
other countries might lend or give us. This also shows that the government
should also invest on projects that could be used as alternative when the
existing systems fail. Few days after, an article was published on GMA Network
website regarding the promotion of another water filter technology.
This article discussed the current situation of the country and the poor
accessibility to water services. Because of that, the author mentioned a
project developed by the Department of Science and Technology a ceramic water filter with a size suitable for home use. Apparently, this project has taken off two
years ago and was tested in a site in Muntinlupa City. This might already been
introduced in the previous years, but as we can see the project has not been
fully developed or promoted to actually reach the mainstream alternative
systems. With this we can see that we already have available resources and
developments regarding the provision of clean water. This technology should
have been maximized during the earlier part of relief operations. This could
have lessen the dependency of the people to the goods that were just handed
over to them after the disaster.
These
water filter technologies presented in these articles are just some of the many
other great technologies and ideas developed by Filipinos but have not received
much attention. Different local projects might have been in the limelight for a
week or so but none of them were actually being promoted unless of course when
we do not have any other choice, then that would be the time to develop the
related projects in the past. We, Filipinos, tend to look at the local projects
or inventions as something substandard or premature, but how can we develop these
better if we do not support the Filipino developers? Sure, we support our
fellow countrymen who are famous in their own respective fields but we should
also encourage those who are just starting their careers. Moreover, we should
start thinking of projects that could be used as solutions for the emerging
issues or problems in the future and not think of immediate alternative
solution when we already have the problem at hand like what has been happening
in the past.
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