The water issue, the eerie silence, and suspected carcinogens in Metro Manila’s tap water
The entire nation should have learned by now that President Rodrigo Duterte is hell-bent on going after water concessionaire firms Manila Water and Maynilad. With the backing of his Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, the Palace described the concession contracts as “onerous” and “disadvantageous to the government and the consuming public.”
This water issue isn’t really new, as both concessionaires have been in this business since 1997, or when President Fidel V. Ramos, with chief presidential legal counsel Renato “Compañero” Cayetano as his top legal adviser, approved the contract.
But what triggered the President was Manila Water recent public disclosure, that a Singaporean arbitral court had ordered the Philippine government to pay over ₱7.4 billion in damages for declining to approve water rate hikes several years ago, despite the reality that Manila Water registered multibillion-peso net profits annually.
Maynilad, in an earlier decision, was awarded ₱3.4 billion for the same reason, bringing the total government liability to ₱10.8 billion.
Shortly after the President’s announcement, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), upon the President’s orders, canceled a 2009 resolution extending both concession contracts from the original 2022, as stated in the 1997 agreement, to 2037. That is, both concession contracts will both expire in 2022, barely over two years from now.
MWSS announced the revocation a week after the fact.
Atienza speaks out amid eerie silence
Aside from Guevarra and residential spokesman Salvador Panelo, many of the President’s erstwhile noisiest allies, may they be politicians, appointees, or even bloggers, were eerily silent on the issue.
Since 2016, these noisy allies were the first to wag their pom-poms every time the President says something. Yet today, it appears that they magically gained a newfound sense of selfrestraint that rivals that of Mahatma Gandhi.
A couple of moderately administration-aligned bloggers pointed this out, as both were shocked to see that an opposition congressman, Buhay Party-list Rep. Lito Atienza, is more vocal in supporting the President’s call than the House speaker himself, whose continued political survival was made possible after branding himself as the most pro-Duterte politician in the land.
Atienza, in a privilege speech, challenged Cayetano to support the President’s call. How Ironic.
Thankfully, House speaker and Compañero’s son Alan Peter Cayetano eventually announced that there would be a congressional hearing on the water contracts. During the hearing, both water companies announced that they are waiving the collective ₱10.8-billion award.
It’s still unclear if either firm put this waiver in writing.
In the same hearing, Leyte Rep. Vincente Veloso grilled both firms as he focused on the constitutionality of the concession contracts.
Veloso, in effect, tried to use the “duck test” which, in the simplest terms, can be stated as, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”
The contracts state that both Manila Water and Maynilad are mere “agents” of MWSS but Veloso, through his line of questioning, attempted to show that the two have been operating as if they were public utilities themselves.
Veloso tried to show that Manila Water and Maynilad act like a public utility, swim like a public utility, and quack like a public utility, so even if consider themselves merely as MWSS agents, they are de facto public utilities.
If successful, this exposes the concession contract to the possibility of being declared void from the beginning. The parties to the contract, MWSS and the water companies, do not have the legal authority to grant franchises to public utilities, as only Congress does.
Cancer and privatization
Privatization advocates were quick to defend the two firms, arguing that the private sector is more effective in handling water distribution than the government.
I don’t know how they defined “efficient,” but I hope these advocates noticed that everybody present in the congressional hearing was seen drinking bottled water and NOT tap water from Maynilad or Manila Water.
Why so? I think you know the answer but wait; there’s more.
A 2012 study made by
Homer Genuino of the University of Connecticut Department of Chemistry and Maria Pythias Espino of the University of the Philippine Institute of Chemistry showed that bromate levels in tap water samples in 21 locations in Metro Manila contain almost seven times greater than the regulatory limit in the Philippines.
Espino also conducted a similar study in 2003 and with similar results.
Espino is currently an associate professor in UP Diliman with a specialization in Environmental Analytical Chemistry.
Bromate, a contaminant of sodium hypochlorite solutions used for the disinfection of drinking water, is a suspected carcinogen. Manila Water and Maynilad, according to their respective websites, still use sodium hypochlorite.
The 2005 World Health Organization (WHO) paper “Bromate in Drinking-water: Background document for development of WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality” partially explains the bromate issue. Citing studies on laboratory rats, WHO said shortterm exposure might cause kidney and liver damage, among other maladies, while long-term exposure may cause infertility and kidney cancer, among others.
In 2008, Coca-Cola recalled all bottles of Dasani water in the United Kingdom after the detection of dangerous bromate levels.
If we have been consuming the same tap water for years, would that count as long-term exposure to bromate? Note that the two studies are almost a decade apart.
Yes, I am referring to the same tap water prepared and distributed by Metro Manila’s privatized water distribution network.
I now see so much more wisdom in the House of Representatives’ decision to serve bottled water during the hearings on the Water Issue.
With all these said, I am afraid that the President was right when he told daughter Inday Sara, “Do not believe the clamor of the people because when the water gets rough, you’ll find that you’re the only one sailing the lonely sea.”