CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY(January 6) — For thousands of residents, January 2, 2026 did not bring floods or fallen trees. It brought something more basic—and more alarming: dry taps.
Since that day, large portions of the city have endured prolonged water outages that disrupted households, small businesses, and health facilities. What unsettled residents most was not just the length of the interruption—but the cause.
“There was no typhoon. It just rained,” said Maria L., a mother of three from Barangay Carmen. “We lined up for water like it was a disaster, but nothing extraordinary happened.”
That shared frustration points to a deeper issue: ordinary rainfall triggered an extraordinary system failure.
Predictable Weather, Unprepared System
The rainfall on January 2 was within normal seasonal levels. For a highly urbanized city, such conditions should not halt water production for days. Engineers say rainfall patterns in Northern Mindanao are among the most documented in the country.
“If normal rain shuts down supply, that means the system has no buffer,” said a civil engineer familiar with water utilities. “That’s not an emergency. That’s a design failure.”
Statements from the Cagayan de Oro Water District (COWD) cite operational constraints, but residents say these explanations are long-familiar.
“We hear the same reasons every time,” said a café owner in Nazareth whose business closed for two days. “But the city keeps expanding. The water system didn’t.”
After 52 years of operations, experts say COWD is being asked to carry a responsibility that has outgrown its institutional capacity—serving a fast-growing urban center with aging infrastructure and limited redundancy.
Health Services Under Strain
At a private hospital in the city proper, staff were forced to ration stored water while coordinating tanker deliveries.
“We had to prioritize critical areas,” a hospital worker said. “We managed, but this shouldn’t be happening without a disaster.”
Clinics and dialysis centers reported similar pressures, relying on purchased water to maintain basic sanitation and patient care.
Emergency Assets for a Non-Emergency
As outages persisted, water tankers were deployed and the Bureau of Fire Protection assisted in water delivery.
For many residents, the response raised unsettling questions.
“Fire trucks are supposed to respond to emergencies,” said a tricycle driver in Lapasan. “Why are they delivering water after normal rain?”
Emergency measures, analysts note, are meant to bridge crises—not substitute for routine service continuity. Their repeated use signals systemic weakness and diverts resources from core public safety functions.
Flooding, Watersheds, and the Same Old Gaps
The water outage once again highlighted long-standing weaknesses in drainage systems, watershed protection, and land-use enforcement. Environmental planners emphasize that flooding and water scarcity stem from the same planning failures.
“When watersheds are degraded and drainage is poor, treatment facilities are vulnerable,” said an environmental advocate. “This is about planning choices made—or not made—over many years.”
Garbage collection has seen partial gains, but landfill management still lacks modern technology. Traffic congestion worsens daily, constrained by outdated contracts and policies. Residents see a pattern of delayed decisions on core systems.
A Metro Framework Still Waiting
Urban planners continue to point to the stalled Metro-Cagayan de Misamis proposal as a missed opportunity. Designed to address region-wide problems—water, flood control, waste, transport, and land use—it remains pending in Congress.
Without a metropolitan framework, Cagayan de Oro is left tackling regional-scale problems with city-level tools.
Beyond Tankers and Reassurances
Residents say what they want now is clarity and action.
The city, they argue, must secure stronger national support, accelerate new water sources, expand treatment and storage capacity, and build redundancy into the distribution network—while communicating clearly and honestly with the public.
“Just tell us what’s really wrong and how long it will take,” said a resident waiting for a tanker in Barangay Bulua. “We can adjust. What we can’t accept is silence.”
Paying for Years of Postponement
Cagayan de Oro’s growth, investment prospects, and basic livability depend on reliable water. When ordinary rain leaves communities dry, the cause is not misfortune.
It is the cost of decisions deferred for too long.
