Talk:Water supply and sanitation in the Philippines

Missing information

Although I found some documents containing good information, there are still many questions left. Generally, most figures need to be updated. The most important gaps of information are summarized in the following questions:

• Are there any data on water quality and continuity outside of Metro Manila?
• The Clean Water Act calls for increased wastewater treatment and sanitation. Have there been any major steps to implement this strategy? For example, how many water treatment plants exist or are planned?
• How does the economic regulation perform? Did it prove to independent from political interference? Have there been any further attempts to create a single regulatory agency for all service providers?
• How did tariffs develop in the last years? Did cost recovery improve, maybe even in LGUs? Have there been amalgamations of LGUs or water districts to improve economic efficiency?
• The data I found on general investment in the sector are very poor. Is there more precise information on that issue? How did investment develop after 2004? What share of investments is financed by the central government?
• What is the share of metering in LGUs, water districts and MWSS?
• Is there any more information on private sector participation outside of Metro Manila?
• More information on external cooperation by development agencies, development banks or NGOs is also welcome!

If you have answers or sources of information or you think that there are more issues to be improved, please feel free to work on the article on your own, post your suggestions on this discussion page or on my user page. Thank you for your interest and help! Kerres (Talk) 08:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I changed "in the last years" to "in recent years". It should have a date, though, because what if this article stays here for many years? It should say "in recent years, as of 2008", if that's what it means. But if you were translating something that was written in 2006, for example, then it should say "in recent years, as of 2006".

• Actually, I see the first efforts in 2003, so I changed it to that date.--Kerres (Talk) 12:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see more in these articles about physical (engineering) aspects: what types of materials they use to make the pipes and channels the water goes through; what methods they use to process water; what materials they import from other countries. At least, more wikilinks to Wikipedia articles about the water treatment processes etc. It would be nice to have images showing typical water use by families, for example a photo of a kitchen sink, a photo of a village well, of someone carrying water, etc. whatever is typical of how people use water in the country. I haven't read the whole article yet, but it looks good. Keep up the good work! These articles are a great contribution to the encyclopedia. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, I do not know a lot about the technical elements of water supply and sanitation and most documents which I read do not contain much information. I am going to learn more about the engineering aspects later this year and hope that I can include in the articles what I have learnt. Thank you for the very good suggestion to wikilink more of these aspects, which I will keep in mind. I did not find any photos which can be posted in Wikipedia. Do you maybe have any idea where to get and how to license them?--Kerres (Talk) 12:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This sentence leaves me wondering, "withdrawn from where?" Maybe saying "withdrawn" by itself is the way it's usually said in the industry, and maybe it isn't. Maybe another verb is better. I don't know. "used" "collected" "drawn from rivers and other sources", etc. "drawn" may be better than "withdrawn" but still needs to say where it's drawn from, I think. Possibly "diverted"? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:39, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

• Withdrawal is the term used in most water resources documents. I will add something like "withdrawn from various sources".--Kerres (Talk) 13:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Re this sentence: "hows the great effort which the NWRB makes to establish itself as leading regulatory agency " I think it needs either "a" or "the" before "leading", depending on whether it will be the only one or one of several leading regulatory agencies.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

• You're right! It is "the" leading agency.--Kerres (Talk) 12:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The phrase "use to" appears a few times in the article. I wonder whether it should be "used to", which is a past tense. The way it is, it doesn't seem to make sense. "used to provide" means "provided in the past", but if there's no "d" then it's the verb "to use" and it should say what is being used. You can say "I use a tool" but you can't just say "I use". ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for clearing this up. You may have already noticed that I am not a native speaker. So if you see anything strange in my English, don't hesitate to correct me.--Kerres (Talk) 12:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I read the whole article. It looks excellent to me! You're doing fantastic work here, Kerres!!☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

• I am glad that you like the article. Thanks a lot for your contributions to it which help to improve it!--Kerres (Talk) 13:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think the article is excellent. Your English is better than some native speakers in some ways, in my opinion. Except for the few phrases I changed or commented on, it sounds to me like exactly the right style of language for this type of article. If the literature says "withdrawn", then probably it's fine to just leave it the way it was. However, "withdrawn from various sources" would help other people like me who may not be familiar with the terminology; it makes it clearer what's happening. "withdrawn from various sources" pretty clearly means withdrawn from lakes, rivers etc. to be used. But just "withdrawn" could mean many things: it could mean the service was withdrawn from customers who hadn't paid, for example. I mean, to me, not knowing the terminology in the literature, it could mean that. So maybe for the first use in each article, "withdrawn from various sources" would be good, and then in the rest of the article you can just say "withdrawn". (You see, you knew more about English than I did with this use of the word "withdrawn".)

I hope I didn't sound too critical about putting in more engineering aspects: you can't be expected to know everything! For photos: I would suggest clarifying what types of photos you want, then putting in requests at places like commons:Commons:Picture requests, and places likely to be read by people who may be able to take such pictures, such as the talk pages of the Spanish-language versions of the articles. I'm thinking in terms of trying to attract the attention of someone who lives in the country and has a camera, or who will travel to the country with a camera. They can take pictures and upload them to Commons under GFDL. There might be other places to ask, too: organizations such as NGO's or aid agencies that might have people travelling to the country, and if you could talk to those people you might be able to ask them to take pictures. Possibly some aid agencies or NGO's already have photos they'd be willing to provide. I'm just making these suggestions. It depends too on whether you think it's a good idea. It can't hurt to put in a request at Commons: if we agree on what pictures would be good I'm willing to do that. As far as licencing: If someone takes a picture themselves, in almost all cases they have the right to license it. If they upload it and follow the instructions and state that they're licensing it under GFDL, then it's fine. I've never uploaded a picture and the instructions can be tricky: many people leave out some information by mistake and have to do it again. But I think if you're careful and try to follow all the instructions it's not very hard. Melesse knows all about licencing images. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

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