Imagine watching a TV screen from a distance. A film set in your local city is playing. In one scene, several days and nights are filled with unfinished chores, delayed meals, and competition for what should be a fundamental necessity and human right: water.
For residents of Iligan City, this is not a movie they watch on a television screen but a reality they live.
On October 15, 2026, the Iligan City Waterworks System (ICWS) initiated an emergency water shutdown due to a pipe leakage of a 24-inch High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) transmission pipeline along Barangay Suarez. On October 20, ICWS announced that the cementing works on the damaged pipeline have been completed—works that, according to ICWS, “were undertaken to strengthen the foundation and provide adequate support for the newly connected pipe.” However, not even a day had passed when ICWS made another announcement, this time informing the public that another pipe breach had occurred. When ICWS announced on October 24 that the repair of the pipeline had been completed, Iliganons were hopeful—expecting that this time, they could finally turn on their faucets and go back to the normal flow of their lives. But days after the announcement was made, ICWS’s comment sections were still swarmed by fresh complaints from residents whose homes were still experiencing dry taps.
An outsider might think that this is an isolated incident but Iliganons know that the latest disruption is not without precedent. Residents likely still remember when ICWS initiated an emergency shutdown on April 6, 2026, following an identical pipe breach. On the morning of April 7, it was announced that repairs had been completed but later that afternoon, however, another emergency shutdown was carried out to investigate a recurring leak. Even after repair announcements, complaints about dry taps continued. Everything sounds familiar, don’t they? Like a video on loop, a broken record, a moment in time that every Iliganon is forced to live again and again—raising questions about a truth that has long been exposed but left to rot: Iligan City’s poorly monitored water infrastructure, materials that keep failing, limited contingency planning, faulty communication, and promises that repeatedly go unfulfilled.
During these recurring incidents, residents bear the burden of queuing for water or purchasing a rather expensive alternative—ones that come in bottles or gallons. As these crises repeatedly unfold without warning, Iliganons are left scrambling to adjust to circumstances beyond their control. Businesses suffer losses, households are thrown into disarray, toilets cannot be flushed, and residents are forced to endure the sweltering heat without the basic convenience of a reliable water supply.
The MSU-IIT Cats Facebook group has also been filled with students’ testimonies that extend beyond academic life, sharing how the water crisis has disrupted their daily routines. Among their concerns are the inability to bathe, use the toilet comfortably, and maintain basic personal hygiene. Some recounted being unable to prepare meals, wash dishes, and do their laundry. For students living in dormitories or boarding houses and those who are facing financial difficulties, these disruptions make even the simplest tasks even more difficult to manage. As ordinary necessities have become daily struggles, flexible learning arrangements have been implemented and even further prolonged, while student activities have been cancelled and examinations rescheduled. However, the situation extends beyond the continuing water supply disruptions affecting students and faculty members. It reflects how the university serves as a microcosm of the broader realities of living in Iligan City: a society thrown into chaos because of the hypocrisy that seems to reek from the city's banner of “Asenso Iliganon.”
Beyond the immediate inconvenience, these recurring disruptions raise a more pressing question: how long must residents continue to bear the consequences of a problem they did not create? Access to clean and reliable water is not a luxury; it is a right. While emergency repairs may be unavoidable, the recurrence of these incidents calls for more than temporary fixes. This positions the local government as a greater source of public inconvenience than the water interruption itself; perhaps a trip down memory lane will hammer home that this is a film every Iliganon has seen before.
Iligan City’s water woes are not new. As early as 2018, the local government considered a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) proposal to address the water system’s financial burden, including pipe repairs and operations that generated little revenue and required government subsidies. Yet the problem persisted: a Commission on Audit (COA) report released in February 2024 revealed that out of 150.7 million liters of water produced daily by ICWS, only about 53.6 million liters actually reach households and other establishments, while the remaining 97 million liters were reportedly lost each day, largely due to leaks from old and damaged pipes.
In May 2024, then-mayor and now re-elected Iligan Mayor Frederick Siao disclosed that the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) and Manila Water had expressed interest in helping enhance the city’s water services. However, he maintained that operations should remain under ICWS if the city wanted to generate revenue. A month later, the LGU Iligan – Iligan Investment, Investment & PPP Center boasted about the city’s newest investment: the JE Hydro Level 3 Water Supply project, set to enhance water supply infrastructure. With a total project cost of approximately ₱500 million, JE Hydro’s entry was presented as timely, given that the city was having issues in distribution due to old pipes and high water pressure despite plentiful water resources. These proposals and investments underscore a persistent question: despite years of recognizing the problem and pursuing solutions, why do Iliganons continue to bear the burden of an unreliable water system?
At this point, none of this is an emergency caused by lack of prior knowledge—years and years of news outlets covering the same issues, alongside recurring hardships faced by Iliganons, reflect nothing but pathological failure and systemic negligence. This is more than a failure of infrastructure but a persistent failure of governance and accountability. When the same problems resurface, the question is no longer whether authorities knew, but why the necessary and lasting solutions remain out of reach.
Water finds its way. Always. From dry taps to waste trapped in clogged canals, from out-of-service comfort rooms to inconvenienced households, from flawed water deliveries to broken communication—everything finds its way back to aging underground pipelines, leaks, and breakdowns reinforced by unresolved institutional failure. Like an old painting repeatedly retouched but never reimagined, Iligan City’s water supply and infrastructure is a problematic image that remains unchanged. The damage is always patched, never resolved.
May this month of November remind us not only of the souls who have passed but also of the promises of progress and change that have long haunted the city. Is Iligan’s drive toward progress a mere ghost? Or is it, in fact, a myth?
Water is a fundamental human right. But in Iligan City, where residents’ right to access safe, sufficient, and affordable water has long been—time and time again—violated, does the local government still have the right to ask for patience and understanding? At what point do repeated assurances give way to accountability? During these difficult times, when everyone is grappling to survive, the last thing every Iligan household needs is to be persistently failed by the very government that’s supposed to serve them. Iliganons deserve more than temporary relief and promises of improvement; they deserve clear commitments backed by measurable results. It is time for the local government to stop merely managing the crisis and start resolving it.
Written by Sunfish with a Pen
Proofread by Harris Donmoen Iligan
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