The water crisis
I am torn between finishing this column or taking my night bath first. It is 8 in the evening and I am home. Until a few days ago, I didn’t have to choose between meeting my deadline and doing something as mundane as taking a shower. But now I have to because in a few minutes, the taps will run dry.
I am sure the tens of thousands of other customers of Manila Water, the East Zone water concessionaire, are having similar problems. Last weekend, I went to a home depot to buy foodgrade water containers. Alas, I was late by a few hours. A restaurant owner bought all the supplies available in that particular branch. A visit to three other home depot stores also turned out to be futile.
Not surprisingly, the water shortage has also resulted in a sudden scramble to buy water containers as well. It doesn’t help that the cold days and nights we used to enjoy in the early part of the year are now a thing of the past. Now, it is starting to get scorching hot and the thermometer reads 31 degrees Celsius.
I pause for a while and decide that I will take a bath now before the water supply runs out. But I am late again as I was late in the race for the water containers.
Welcome to mayhem, welcome to Quezon City, welcome to Manila Water’s concession area.
But this really is not about me or my scorching nights without showering. It really is a story shared by around 500,000 households in this concession area. It’s a new norm we have found ourselves in and we would like to know what went wrong.
It’s a very valid question, especially because the other concessionaire does not have a supply problem.
Initially, according to newspaper reports, the water shortage was lumped with the effects of El Niño, but when Dondi Alikpala, former head of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) said on social media that “Manila Water’s explanation does not add up,” I began to wonder what really happened.
Some skeptics went on to say the shortage was artificial to justify future tariff increases.
But I don’t believe an Ayala-owned company would do that. There’s just too much at stake for Manila Water or any other private corporation that is heavily regulated to do that especially when regulators now can just go haywire.
However, I believe there was obviously a problem of foresight, thus the lack of preparation. It seems Manila Water was unable to plan and manage for the surge in demand.
It also did not have enough early warnings that would have enabled the customers to prepare better.
It is disappointing because the expectations from any private company is that its services are much better. Isn’t this the favorite argument for privatization of utilities?
Of course, the government also plays a very crucial role and is also to blame for the problem. Shouldn’t every administration be planning for water security for 100 million people? We should all remember that the responsibility of providing raw water supply rests on the government.
Maynilad, on the other hand, was able to build reservoirs, increasing the reservoir capacity to 710 million liters from just 419 million liters prior to 2010 or a 69 percent increase, says Ronald Padua, head of operations of Maynilad Water supply.
These reservoirs helped prevent any service-affecting interruption, says Maynilad president and CEO Ramoncito Fernandez.
From having reservoirs in just 12 locations prior to 2010, Maynilad now has reservoirs in 31 locations.
Manila Water also built reservoirs, but because of high demand these reservoirs apparently were not enough.
Water treatment
“The whole strategy involves a) water hydraulic engineerings; b) automation with data loggers spread throughout our network; c) a central monitoring system which allows us to monitor and control our system remotely, and d) a well-oiled customer engagement and notification system,” Mon Fernandez says, gamely answering my off-hour text questions about the water crisis.
Maynilad also invested early in additional sources of water including the Laguna Lake.
Ronald also explained to me that the company put up an additional water treatment plant with a capacity of 150 million liters per day. This would be available by April.
Clearly, Maynilad has learned its lesson from the Big El Niño of 2010.
Metro Manila’s water comes from Angat Dam and is distributed by Manila Water for the East Zone and Maynilad for the West Zone.
Based on the concession agreement, Manila Water services over six million people and gets 40 percent or 1.6 billion liters a day, while Maynilad gets 60 percent – 2.4 billion liters per day of the raw water allocation for its 9.5 million customers.
Angat Dam has enough water to supply Metro Manila. Tycoon Ramon Ang, whose company operates the Angat Dam hydro facility, gave this assurance. The National Water Resources Board also said the same thing.
In the end, this water shortage should leave us an invaluable lesson – we really should use water wisely.
In Cape Town last year, there was an hourglass in my hotel room to promote two-minute showers. At the time, there was a water shortage in the sun-stippled port city which is is touted as the French Riviera of South Africa. It’s the right thing to do, the sign in the bathroom said.
It can happen to us, so let us heed the lessons well. In fact, here in my very own home, it’s already happening. I can’t even have a 30-second shower, at least not this time.