The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Pure Water Corporation (PWC) has committed to adhere to the sixth of the series of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG6) of the United Nations (UN) to ensure access to water and sanitation for all, and improve national economy and mitigate climate change, in commemoration of World Water Day.
“We can be part of the solution that could combat the global water and sanitation crisis,” Dexter Y. Tiu, CEO of PWC, said in an interview.
Access to clean water and sanitation—a basic necessity for everyone—has been an ongoing issue for marginalized communities, especially in developing countries like the Philippines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund’s (Unicef) Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply have noted a progress in total population served with improved water supply, which amounted to 93,446,584, or 93 percent of Filipinos, in 2015—a percentage nearing to the fulfillment of SDG6 if supported by the local business community.
“Water plays a vital role in our homes and communities, and in generating income for the Philippine economy. Water is a sustainable and renewable source that can help disaster risk-reduction and climate resilience,” said Tiu.
The UN celebrates this year’s World Water Day with the theme Water and Jobs, which highlights the importance of better water to provide better jobs to the 1.5 million unrecog-nized employees in water-relat-ed sectors.
PWC contributes to SDG6 by providing a clean and sustainable water supply to water districts, and directly to consumers through its sub-sidiary Tubig Pilipinas Group Inc. (TPGI), a bulk water and distribution-utility company that provides potable, safe and reliable water in major cities and towns in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.
“We aim to reach out to unserved and underserved communities that lack clean and sustainable potable water and serve them with a necessity that, for them, has become a luxury,” said Ryan Yapkianwee, president of Tubig Pilipinas.
Tubig Pilipinas has ongoing water systems and projects in development in Trece Martires, Sual, Labrador, Cadiz, Bacolod, and others in the Negros region, and in Mindanao. It has im-plemented several corporate social responsibility programs to adopt the waterways—rivers, lakes, streams—adjacent or near its areas of operation that will ensure a systematic