A Cebu-based bulk water supplier is expanding its services to Panglao town in Bohol province with the operation of a reverse osmosis plant in the area.
Abejo Waters Corp. will treat the 4th class municipality’s brackish and salty water and make this potable for its more than 33,000 population, said Rene Oliva Jr., Abejo Waters Corp. Vice President for Sales, Marketing and Public Relations.
“Our objective is countryside development. We wanted to help communities (in Panglao town) catch up with urban development,” he said.
Oliva said they will start their operation in May by serving water to four of Panglao’s 10 barangays.
Water will be sold at P20 per cubic meters for the first five cubic meters and P25 per cubic meters for the succeeding six to 10 cubic meters.
Subscribers who will be consuming more than 31 cubic meters per day will already be charged P45 to P60 per cubic meters of water respectively.
Oliva said that during their initial production, Abejo Waters can produce 4,000 cubic meters of potable water to service Barangays Doljo, Danao, Looc and Poblacion that has around 6,000 residents.
Before the year ends, Oliva said they intend to expand their operations to also serve the six other barangays of Bil-isan, Bolod, Libaong, Lourdes, Tangnan and Tawala.
Abejo waters invested P165 million on its subsidiary, the Panglao Water Services Incorporated (PWSI) that has a capacity to produce and distribute 8,000 cubic meters of water per day.
“We installed a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis machine that will guarantee our supply efficiency and allow us to serve bottled water quality to their tap. This is what a highly tourism-oriented municipality like Panglao, Bohol deserves,” said Oliva.
Their plants sits on a 3,000-square-meter lot in Sitio Cascajo, Barangay Looc. It has two bolted steel tanks from Australia and a state-of-the-art brackish water reverse osmosis machine.
Oliva said they will also be hiring locals to man their 24/7 operations.
Abejo Waters entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with Panglao town officials on August 28, 2013 “to develop, finance, design, engineer, operate, manage and maintain at their own cost the water distribution system in Panglao.”