A man uses a small plastic cup to fill an empty water bottle with the “mysterious healing” water spewing from a hole in wall of the Barangay San Roque chapel in Barangay Basak-Pardo, Cebu City. (CDN PHOTO/CHRISTIAN MANINGO)
Maria Cimafranca does not believe in doctors.
Her belief is founded on two things: her financial situation and her superstition.
When she’s sick, she prefers going to a faith healer or using herbal medicine, which is a cheaper way to treat herself.
So when Cimafranca learned about the mysterious water flowing from the side of San Roque chapel in Barangay Basak-Pardo, Cebu City, she immediately went to the area.
“The water (healing) is true. My condition is now better,” the 68-year-old woman told Cebu Daily News in Cebuano as she queued and waited for her turn to fill an empty bottled water with the alleged “healing” water that she could bring home.
Cimafranca, who came from Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City, has been suffering from cough and colds for more than a week.
She drank two glasses of the alleged “healing” water yesterday.
“I feel better already, and my cough too has started to get better,” she told Cebu Daily News three hours after she drank the water.
The alleged “healing water” freely flows from a medium-sized hole with an orange pipe at the left side of the chapel wall, where people can fill their plastic glasses to drink or water containers to bring home.
Water noticed
Jonathan Reyes, 54, the chapel president, said they noticed the water spewing from the chapel wall since July 22 at the time when the novena for the fiesta started.
The San Roque chapel will also celebrate its annual fiesta celebration today.
Reyes said since then, he estimated the people lining up to get their fill of the mysterious water at more than a thousand already.
“The people here came voluntarily. We did not expect this number of people,” Reyes said.
He also said that the people who came would drink the water or use it as a liniment to treat themselves.
When asked if there were people who fell ill or had a bum stomach because of drinking the water, Reyes said so far, no one had fallen ill for drinking the water.
He said most of those, who even used the water to treat their illnesses, claimed they were healed or at most felt better from their condition.
But Perla Tolentino, a food vendor outside the chapel, claimed that the mysterious water was noticed since May.
“The water continued to flow from the hole in the wall even if it rains or not. But the water stopped flowing for a short while, and it returned again this July,” Tolentino said in Cebuano.
Tolentino was also among the people who believed in the healing power of the mysterious water.
She said that she used the water as a liniment to heal her foot allergies.
MCWD water test
Charmaine Kara, public affairs manager for Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD), said they had already conducted a test on the water and it was found that the water had chlorine.
When asked if the water was safe to drink, she said she could not say yet.
“Mangutana pa ko sa laboratory kay duna ma’y required amount of chlorine in the water for the water to be potable or safe to drink,” she said.
She also could not say that the water was from MCWD.
“Maybe it’s from another private supplier. But the presence of chlorine indicates it is processed or treated water,” Kara said.
Leak detection
The MCWD still has to conduct a leak detection after the fiesta to determine the source of the water — whether it came from a spring or an underground water.
Kara said that in a leak detection, they would use an equipment that would detect the sound of underground water.
The leak detection would be done at quiet hours after midnight.
“After that, we will excavate and locate the pipe,” Kara told Cebu Daily News.
Yesteday, when CDN visited the chapel, at least 40 people queued to get their supply of the “healing” water.
Pregnant woman
These included Cimafranca and Emerlinda Medez, a 6-month pregnant woman.
Medez said she was there to get a share of the water to heal the flatulence that she was experiencing.
When asked if she was not afraid to drink the water with her being pregnant, she said that she would not drink the water but would only use it as a liniment.
“A lot of people recovered from their illnesses when they tried it,” Medez claimed.
Medez brought 3 gallons of the water home yesterday.
She said the water was for her mother, who had arthritis, and her father, who had a heart condition.