In 2006, Manila Water, a water and wastewater service provider, offered them direct water connections but at P7,000 per connection, it was beyond what the community could afford. “We wanted the connection,” says Isabel, “but we could not afford it. So we looked for a sponsor.”

Enter the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) facility, a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank which, in 2007 provided Manila Water a grant of $2.8 million to expand its “Tubig Para sa Barangay” (TPSB) or Water for the Poor program in 45 urban poor communities.

The GPOBA grant allowed Manila Water to expand its existing program and install water service connections to more customers from low-income communities at very affordable installment rates.

Read the rest of the story here.

More details to come soon.

I’m very excited to share that my brother, Stephen, and his wife, Katy, have felt God calling them to serve the poor in the Philippines. Right now, we are working on plans to start a soup kitchen in Fairview.  Please pray for this endeavor!  And we can certainly use financial support.

The photo below shows a family business in the Fairview area.

AN international team that monitored the first automated electoral exercise in different parts of the country has concluded, among others, that the May 10 elections was “neither fair nor honest.”

The 11-country International Observers’ Mission (IOM), in a report furnished to Sen. Francis Escudero as cochairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee on Automated Elections, noted that “widespread intimidation, vote-buying, corruption and violence showed that automation could solve only part of the problem.”  …Read the rest of the story

MANILA, Philippines—Even the dawn of new technology could not silence the guns and bombs in Philippine elections.

Shootings and explosions on the eve of and during Monday’s historic elections showed that nothing much had changed as a nation weary of political bloodbaths pinned its hopes on computerized balloting.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) placed Monday’s death toll at 11 as of Monday night.

But according to Inquirer reports, at least 18 people have been killed in election-related violence since Sunday: Eight in Mindanao, five in Luzon, and five in the Visayas.  Read the whole story.

MANILA, Philippines—Some 2,500 families were left homeless when a fire broke out in a thickly populated community several meters from the corner of E. Rodriguez Sr. and Araneta Avenues in Barangay Damayang Lagi, Quezon City, Sunday afternoon.

QC deputy fire marshal Supt. Romell Rillo said the fire started at around 3 p.m. in a three-story house in the middle of the slum area in front of E. de los Santos Medical Center. Read the whole story.