No water – no transfer

After almost 25 years of being held “hostage,” Taclobanons under the leadership of Mayor Alfred Romualdez are putting the proverbial foot down and making a stand. If the Leyte Metropolitan Water District (LMWD) and the P-Noy administration cannot provide water connections for each permanent shelter in the 14,500 unit township built north of Tacloban City, the local government will not issue an occupancy permit!

It seems that the national government has been pushing for the immediate transfer of disaster victims to the said location in spite of the fact that there is no source of water for the intended residents. The plan is to arrange for the Leyte Metropolitan Water Utilities to provide water via tankers as needed and this turned out to be the last straw for Romualdez and local officials because “water” and who controls it or manages the LMWD has long been a sore point for Taclobanons.

As told to me by a fellow UP graduate, the “war over water” started approximately 25 years ago when LMWD used to be under the sway of Tacloban City for a couple of years, until a change in the leadership of the National Government resulted in a change in who ran LMWD. In the initial struggle, I was told that two persons died or were killed during the squabbles; a poor “peasant” and one member of media who people believe was gunned down for his unrelenting criticism related to LMWD and the politics behind it.

So what exactly is the sore point? It seems that “control” or appointing powers for General Manager and Board of Directors for the government owned and controlled corporation is determined by who has the greatest number of consumers or connections. This is determined by the number of meters and subscribers located within Tacloban City versus the rest of the Leyte District under LMWD. Who ever has the majority gets to run the show. Subsequently, the group that controls the water district can determine the development and investment program of the water utilities. Tacloban City officials want to tap investors like Maynilad or Manila Water to bid out the privatization of the water district to professional companies while the LMWD group has allegedly relied on taking out close to a billion pesos in loans for development purposes without having to relinquish control of LMWD and being a power unto themselves.

In order to sustain their grip over the business, what LMWD allegedly does is resort to clustering customers within Tacloban City. Residents of a village are clustered under one main meter for statistical purposes while every five households would be enrolled under one meter. So instead of counting thousands of individual homes and customers that would result in Tacloban having the highest number of customers, clustering reduces the numbers and robs Tacloban City of the right to nominate and manage the water district.

They can’t question loans being taken out by LMWD or question why the water pressure in Tacloban is weaker than the rest of the serviced area. There are even claims that every time campaign and election period comes, water supply to parts of the city suspiciously cuts off and only comes at two in the morning forcing residents to lose sleep just to fill pails and drums. The theory is that it is intended to make people angry and blame their local officials particularly the Mayor.

Another sore point is the fact that large consumers like Robinson’s Mall, Coke, hotels and similar establishments are not given their own pipeline and meters but are serviced with water tankers. Estimates put the cost of this delivered water to be at P250 per cubic meter or 300% higher than residential prices. In addition, there is a delivery charge of P150 per cubic meter or an average of P1,500 for delivery.  This system is being challenged and labeled as a money-making scheme that benefits tanker operators especially when the tankers don’t deliver a full load, requiring several trips at night. This scheme increases the cost to do business and turns off potential investors considering Tacloban City.

Aside from business establishments, I received information that many schools, several hospitals, as well as government facilities have been appealing, requesting and ultimately complaining about the failure of LMWD to provide connections and water supply. Very recently, DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman was quoted as asking why there was barely any water at the ladies comfort room at the Daniel Romualdez (Tacloban City) Airport? “patak patak lang.” That was when Secretary Soliman was briefed on the decades old oppression that Taclobanons have endured in terms of their water supply.

Ironically, the poor management of the LMWD has apparently resulted in insufficient volume of sales and as a consequence lack of funds to improve their facilities or operations. Instead of making money or earning profits like private concessionaires in water, the LMWD relies on loans which could ultimately spell financial disaster for the government office.

Given this state of affairs, people here are also wondering why national government officials in charge of studying and implementing the Rehabilitation Master plan approved everything EXCEPT the section providing for a water supply system that was being backed with a P2 billion fund offered by the World Bank in the form of a 90 percent grant and 10 percent loan. If the World Bank is offering a GRANT, why are national government officials content with tanker delivery systems?

Aside from not issuing occupancy permits, I learned from the Romualdez team that they are currently initiating an independent audit to determine the actual user-customers of LMWD in Tacloban City and Leyte district. Once this data is collected, they will compare it to studies made by Maynilad to challenge the claims of LMWD officials and if necessary go to court, to media even to the Office of the Ombudsman.

* * *

Email: [email protected]