Who’s to blame for the Metro Manila water crisis?

“Many areas in the metro have experienced weak to no water supply, with some areas having people line up for hours to get water from tankers,” BusinessWorld reported, as all other media did, in the anxiety of worse to come. The people are angry.

According to the Manila Water Service’s own update on Monday, March 11, at least 13 barangays in Mandaluyong City were affected (“no water”). In Marikina City, barangays experienced “low pressure to no water” service interruptions. In Quezon City, at least 83 barangays experienced “low pressure to no water” service interruptions last week. Several barangays in Antipolo, Rizal, were also affected, so with Pasig, Taguig, the Rizal towns of Angono, Taytay and Binangonan, as well as Makati, Parañaque, and Pateros (BusinessWorld March drinking water and effluents standards by the year 2000 (Freedom from Debt Coalition (op.cit.). These targets were not achieved, but there were notable improvements. For example, in East Manila between 1997 and the end of 2009 the share of customers with continuous water supply increased from 26% to more than 98% (Global Water Summit 2010). In West Manila it increased from 46% in 2007 to 82% in September 2011 (Maynilad/MWSS statement 2012). Before privatization, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) provided water for on average only 16 hours every day to just two thirds of Metro Manila (Urban Studies “A tale of two concessionaires…”, 2008).

In its vision-mission statement, the MWSS declares: “We derive our mandate primarily from Republic Act 6234 which states the basic goals of the System and declares as its major policy the proper operation and maintenance of waterworks system to ensure an uninterrupted and adequate supply and distribution of potable water for domestic and other purposes and the proper operation and maintenance of sewerage systems in its service area which includes the whole of Metro Manila and parts of Cavite and Rizal” (mwss.gov.ph). It is clear whom the public should blame for the present water crisis.

The fact that there are two concessionaires for the Eastern and the Western sectors of the water delivery and service area does not clear the MWSS from its responsibility for water — the most basic of all utilities in the metropolis. A business, specially a profit organization (a non-NGO), will plan for its business, but the government (MWSS) should plan the macro — in this case, the guarantee of water availability for the people. The failure of the concessionaires to deliver water is the failure of the MWSS.

For the current crisis, Maynilad has graciously agreed to share 50 million liters per day from its water supply, to help out Manila Water with its deficits (ABS-CBN March 11, 2019). But Manila Water lacks around 150 to 280 million liters of water per day! The National Water Resources Board will allow the activation of deep wells to generate 100 million liters a day to complete about 200 million liters supply to East zone households (Ibid.)

Manila Water and Maynilad have had to work with the constraints of burgeoning demand (due to population explosion and the rising standard of living of OFWs and call center workers) versus depleting supply from aging dams (Angat is 40 years old). Manila Water has taken the initiative of constructing a treatment plant in Cardona, Rizal, to draw water from Laguna Lake, enough to cover some of their compounding supply deficit (ABS-CBN March 12, 2019). Businessman Enrique Razon is pushing to build with Manila Water starting the end of 2019 Wawa Dam, which can be the nearest major source of bulk water to provide 80 million liters per day by 2021 and 540 million liters daily by 2024 (Bloomberg March 14, 2019).

Meanwhile, one of the projects pushed under Pres. Duterte’s Build, Build, Build is the New Centennial Water SourceKaliwa Dam project, which is expected to supply an additional 600 million liters of water daily to Metro Manila once completed in 2023 (Rappler March 13, 2019). Columnist JC Punongbayan says, “It is this project that the MWSS favored over the Laguna Lake project put forward by Manila Water despite warnings it could prove more expensive and already too late to avert an impending water crisis.” He points out that this P12.2-billion project is funded by a Chinese loan at interest rate of 2%, 8 times higher than Japanese loans, and for which it is required that the dam be built by a Chinese contractor, China Energy Engineering Corporation (Ibid.).

Is he saying we might have a problem deeper than the Metro Manila water shortage?

Going by the vision-mission statement of MWSS, it is clear whom the public should blame for the water crisis.

O