Execs now resolving Isabela water supply woes

BASILAN --- House Deputy Speaker Mujiv Hataman convened Thursday the barangay captains in Isabela City and presided over an urgent dialogue with the management of the Isabela Water District, or ISAWAD, on shortages of water supply for local communities.

Residents of Isabela City in the island province of Basilan have been ranting for weeks now on the lack of water flowing out of their taps. They have been venting their ire on ISAWAD via the social media.

While the water utility is not under the Isabela City local government unit, Mayor Sitti Djalia Turabin-Hataman and Vice Mayor Kifli Salliman, both first termers, have been trying to flex their ministerial powers to help address the issue.

Deputy Speaker Hataman, lone congressional representative of Basilan, has urged the manager of ISAWAD, Alelie Almodovar, to focus attention on the problem.

Barangay officials told reporters the constraint could be blamed on the lack of foresight, or neglect, by past officials on the need to harness, supposedly in the past two decades, of potential sources of water in Isabela City based on advance calculations on increases in number of consumers and the volume of water the ISAWAD has to supply to villages and in the city’s commercial areas based on actual daily need.

The present city leadership and Deputy Speaker Hataman, elected to office also only last May 13, 2019, are now doing their best to resolve the crisis.