A wake-up call… maybe

In 150 days, it will be the height of the typhoon season, so obviously water shortage woes in Metro Manila’s eastern sector would be over by then. The woes will shift to the usual flooding in certain communities.

It’s doubtful that in 150 days, Manila Water would have completed more treatment facilities to deal with a booming consumer base. And it might take more than 150 months before the government can get a new water reservoir for Metro Manila in operation.

The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System tried to manage public expectations, but made President Duterte look silly by saying he had been ill-advised about the way water distribution works when he ordered the release of 150 days’ worth of water from Angat Dam, or else. Even the subsequent clarification from the MWSS looked simply like the rueful statement of a chastened subject bowing and scraping before an insulted liege lord.

Both Manila Water and the MWSS look like they’re running around like headless chickens. People in the affected areas are convinced that their water woes are for the long term.

The MWSS had launched the New Centennial Water Source project way back in 2011. The project involved the construction of the Laiban Dam and smaller Kaliwa Dam, with a project cost of P18.724 billion. The dams in General Nakar and Infanta, Quezon are intended to generate hydropower and discharge 600 million liters of fresh water daily, to be delivered for distribution by the water concessionaires to Metro Manila through the mountains of Antipolo, Baras, Tanay and Teresa in Rizal.

Originally intended as a public-private partnership project, the plan didn’t move during the Aquino administration. Now it’s being awarded to the Chinese, so let’s hope it doesn’t become bogged down in another scandal like the ZTE broadband deal.

It will take at least seven years before the dams become operational. As early as 2016, Maynilad had been warning of a looming water crisis.

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As Pinoys usually do, people are turning to humor to cope with a horrid situation. The past days I have been entertained by videos and photos shared by the new “taong grasa” in the east service sector.

Having experienced limited water supply for years in southern Metro Manila, however, I know the folks spreading the amusing images are just coping through laughter with a situation so bad it makes them cry. Irate people are talking of subjecting those responsible to waterboarding.

Because of the crippling blackouts in the final months of Cory Aquino’s presidency, there are contingency plans in place, even in individual households, for coping with power outages. But this is the first time in my life that I’ve seen a water shortage that has lasted for over a week, especially in the east sector.

For a long time, the problem area for water was the western sector, which is under Maynilad. The area covers Camanava (Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela), Pasay and parts of Manila, where the water pipes before privatization were so inadequate, antiquated and full of leaks that periodic outbreaks of cholera were reported in the city of Manila. Also covered are Parañaque, Muntinlupa and Las Piñas, where many homes used to depend on groundwater extraction through deep wells for their needs.

Groundwater, even after being boiled and filtered, has a peculiar taste, and after some time leaves an icky yellow-orange mineral patina on pipes and tiles that resists heavy scrubbing.

Geologists had warned that with the growing population, unabated groundwater extraction was weakening soil foundations, which could endanger communities.

In Parañaque and Las Piñas, water was available only for about three hours every other day. Because of the underestimated extent of the needed pipe replacement and installation, however, the original Maynilad concessionaire was much delayed in bringing its service to its sector. So households continued to invest in water pumps and massive tanks for storage.

Benpres Holdings, which partnered with the French company Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, was the original concessionaire, but gave up and sold the enterprise to the DMCI-Metro Pacific Investments consortium. Finally, 24-hour water service gradually became a reality across the western sector.

But most of the water pumps and tanks are still intact, along with providers of filtered water for drinking, a number of whom still source their supply from deep wells. So the western sector is better prepared to cope with disruptions in the service of the water concessionaire.

As we have seen in recent days, this is not the case in the eastern service area.

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We’ve experienced occasional drizzles since Thursday, but obviously the light rainfall is not enough to improve the situation for the eastern sector.

Water began flowing again in parts of the affected areas only on Friday, when Maynilad shared its supply with Manila Water. Of course the supply is still limited. The fact that the shortage is felt only in the eastern sector, plus the fact that the water situation in Angat Dam is hardly unusual during summer, have fueled speculation that the problem is not low water supply but mismanagement.

Manila Water has denied this. We might establish the facts as Congress begins its probe today.

This crisis should serve as a wake-up call for us on the state of our water resources. It would be better if it really is just a water management issue, which can be remedied quickly, rather than a depletion of supply, which could take many years to address.

The water concessionaires are in charge of distribution; development of fresh water sources is still with the government. After the privatization of distribution, I can’t remember anything much that has happened in terms of developing new water sources.

Laguna de Bay, which Maynilad taps, is heavily silted, overcrowded with fish pens and in dire need of rehabilitation.

We can borrow desalination technology from Israel so we can use seawater for our needs. But this technology is expensive. Singapore, which partly uses the technology but depends largely on neighboring Malaysia for its fresh water supply, has invested heavily in water recycling and rainwater catchment systems. In our country, perhaps the two water concessionaires can lead the way in using such technology in their office buildings.

It’s safe to drink water straight from the tap in Singapore and Israel (except around the Dead Sea). If countries without their own sources of safe water can enjoy water security, we should be able to do it.

But first, water has to start flowing again in the dry taps of Metro Manila.