Too hot ideas

In our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Wednesday, we discussed the nagging issues on the looming water supply shortage amid the projected long dry spell affecting the entire country due to the El Niño phenomenon. In the center of the problem is the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) when the Ayala-owned Manila Water Company, one of its two major concessionaires, suffered systems failure resulting to water interruptions of their millions of customers in the east zone serviced areas in Metro Manila.

This prompted no less than President Rodrigo Duterte to step into the picture. Mincing no words, President Duterte ordered the MWSS to provide immediate relief to the people in the affected areas by releasing additional volume of water from Angat Dam that Manila Water needs to fill the supply gap.

An irate President Duterte gave the MWSS top executives until April 7 to submit their recommendations to prevent a repeat of this situation, including possible termination of contracts of its concessionaires. After which the President will decide the proper course of action and broadly hinted heads would roll at the state-run MWSS.

Unfortunately, the presidential directives hit even the Maynilad Water Services Inc. as the west zone concessionaire of the MWSS. It was ironic for the Maynilad which saved the day for the Manila Water after sharing its water allocations from Angat Dam to stave off a full-blown water crisis they had nothing to do with.

Water rights allocation from Angat Dam to MWSS (shared by Maynilad and Manila Water) is 4,000 million liters of water a day (mld). Aside from Angat Dam, the other source of raw water used for Metro Manila is the Laguna Lake. Maynilad operates the existing water treatment plant in Putatan that has been providing its customers additional 100 mld and another 150 mld once the newest water treatment plant goes on stream in April. So Maynilad has the reserved water it shared last week to help the Manila Water via the underground cross border valves they opened up to let the water flow from.  

The problem, as it later unfolded, was due to the delay in the completion of Manila Water’s Cardona water treatment plant in Rizal which was originally set to go on stream in December last year.

This led to the unexpected water crisis that erupted starting March 6. And until now, some of Manila Water’s six million customers are still experiencing dry taps. Despite public assurances of getting back to normal their water supply, Manila Water has yet to return to the 24/7 supply availability they promised to their customers as of this writing. 

The brothers Jaime Augusto and Fernando Zobel de Ayala who are at the helm of the country’s oldest conglomerate Ayala Corp. – with Manila Water as one of its companies under their family’s flagship – were genuine gentlemen-businessmen and came forward to formally apologize for the obvious miscalculations committed by the management of their water utility firm. 

The formal apology came after Manila Water president Ferdinand dela Cruz announced a one-time waiver of water billing during the period of interrupted water services to their customers. Dela Cruz earlier apologized for the Manila Water and offered to resign during the public hearings on the water crisis conducted separately by the Senate and Congress one after the other last week.

At the heels of these latest developments, we discussed at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay the bigger issue of how to avert the water crisis that President Duterte sought from the MWSS. We have earlier called out against so much muddling of the water shortage issue, especially by politicians trying to earn brownie points by dipping into such basic need as drinking water. 

Thus, we invited in our weekly breakfast news forum the people working on the ground who are really into doing things that should be done to avert the feared water crisis. We had Engr. Patrick Dizon, MWSS division manager, site operations management, Engr. Ronaldo Padua, head of Maynilad’s water supply operations along with Jennifer Rufo, official spokesperson of Maynilad. Manila Water spokesman Jeric Sevilla beg off from joining us, citing previous commitments to attend to. 

In our conversations during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay, Dizon identified the proposed P13.43-billion New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Water Dam project in Quezon Province as among the key elements of the short-term measures of the MWSS to meet the projected demand and supply situation. The Kaliwa Dam – once operational – will provide an additional 650 mld to augment the 4,000 mld from Angat Dam in Bulacan that provides much of potable drinking water and other uses.

Speaking for the MWSS, Dizon defended the two concessionaires, citing they have been putting huge capital investments to install new water system, not just pipelines but also treatment and sewer facilities.

Before the MWSS was privatized in 1995, only 48 percent of Metro Manila was being served, Dizon noted, but to date, water supply coverage in Metro Manila is at 94 percent. Non-revenue water (NRW) – or systems losses due to leakage, theft and other forms of water losses that we customers pay for – was at a high of 61 percent before the MWSS was privatized. Currently, Dizon cited, NRW has been cut to 25 percent.

For its part, Rufo expressed Maynilad’s optimism that no termination of contracts of their 25-year concession with the MWSS will happen. “But as far as we are concerned, we don’t see any threat so far. Our performance is good and so we don’t see the risk of that partnership being suspended,” Rufo said.

Rufo conceded a unilateral suspension or cancellation of the concession by the government is an arbitrable issue because it is included in the terms of their contract with the MWSS. Idiomatically speaking, our policymakers must dip their toes in the waters first before deciding to pre-terminate the MWSS concessions. This might backfire and ultimately, it will be us water consumers who will be the ones to suffer.

This summer, we need to pour cold water to such hot ideas, or else get burned.