ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Officials conducted a pre-bid conference here Tuesday for a water system worth P8.1-million water system for the province of Tawi-Tawi programmed by the present administration of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Tawi-Tawi Gov. Sadikul Sahali had proposed the water system to increase from 35 percent to 80 percent his constituents’ access to potable water, drawing a prompt response from the ARMM Social Fund Program (ASFP), Engineer Nasser Sinarimbo said.

Sinarimbo, project manager of the ASFP, said the conference prescribed for a fast-tracked implementation of the project to expand to Level 3 the Level 2 water supply system in Panglima Sugala, one of 17 towns in Tawi-Tawi where only 35 percent of residents have access to potable water.

It was agreed Tuesday that the project would be constructed by the administration with the Panglima Sugala municipal government under Mayor Nurbert Maquiso Sahali as a lead agency and the provincial government alongside resident-stakeholders as supervising monitors.

The ASFP, an official conduit of the World Bank (WB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in the autonomous region, allocated the P8.1-million fund for the project after learning about the absence of mineral water supply in majority villages of Panglima Sugala.

Residents in majority of Panglima Sugala’s villages, just like most of 17 towns in Tawi-Tawi, get their water supplies from urban places like this city in a fashion costing them extra transport costs, local scribe Norjannah Cajocom said.

“The problem on distant sources of water supply is aggravated by the fact that majority of the people in Tawi-Tawi belong to low income bracket," Cajocom pointed out.

"And that local government units lack funds to address the dilemma,” he added.

Thus, the funding of the waterworks project “by the ASFP on order of ARMM acting Governor (Ansaruddin) Adiong is like manna from heaven,” the Moro scribe said.

The ARMM acting governor, who chairs the board of the ASFP, has earlier ordered priority attention to water system projects in the island provinces of Sulu, Basilan, and Tawi-Tawi.

The Panglima Sugala expanded water system will be opened in Barangay Batu-Batu with the nearby village of Kulape as source of deep-well supply, according to provincial planning officer Nestor Delesas.

According to Delasas, Sahali, who had commissioned a thorough study on the project, has provided P810,214 as a required counterpart fund to the ASFP financing.