Water shortage is imminent; agency-in-charge unconcerned

Water shortage is inevitable.

Forty million Filipinos from nine million households, or one-third of the population, will soon suffer dry faucets. That’s despite costly rates they presently pay local utilities (water districts).

Another 40 million will not get water connection by long-targeted 2030. They will continue drawing from unsafe sources, like shallow wells and rain catchments, if unable to travel to the mainland for clean supply.

But the Local Water Utilities Administration is doing nothing. Is President Bongbong Marcos aware of LWUA’s blissful ignorance? He, not his LWUA appointees, will face public wrath when households go waterless and bathless.

LWUA got only P29-million subsidy from national government for 2026. That’s because, as Senator Loren Legarda noted in sponsoring LWUA’s budget in Congress, “Their 2025 appropriations remain largely intact, and their project readiness must first be demonstrated.”

Legarda meant that LWUA was unable to finish its projects in 2025. It didn’t even start some of those.

LWUA’s budget of P800 million in 2024 was small to begin with. It dwindled to P395 million in 2025.

Administrator Jose Moises Salonga seemed unperturbed. It was he who sought the P29-million subsidy for this year, insiders revealed.

That’s too small for LWUA to fulfill its mission of regulating, overseeing and ensuring the expansion of the 534 water districts onto unserved areas.

LWUA’s biggest concern should be to reduce Non-Revenue Water to the acceptable 20 percent.

NRW is the technical term for leak or tulo. Usual NRW of the 534 water districts is 30-40 percent. The most terribly mismanaged incur 76 percent. The wastage is billed to customers.

Bulk water suppliers complain of mounting debts by mismanaged water districts that are unable to pay. Such bulk water are privately filtered from rivulets and ponds.

With only P29-million subsidy, LWUA must survive on collection of loans to water districts. But that’s iffy. Past admins had lent out funds to favored water districts at softer rates than it borrowed from Asian Development Bank and other lenders.

Longtime employees realized LWUA’s financial unviability. More than a hundred have resigned or taken early retirement in order to collect full benefits before predictable collapse.

Aggravating their departures is the slow recruitment of replacements. Frequent absences of officers have delayed approvals of new hires.

In end-2024 LWUA had 274 staff: 242 “plantilla,” 32 contractuals, plus 50 new hires. It had dropped to less than half at present, mainly due to demoralization and lack of guidance.

Water districts are categorized into four, depending on number of water connections. They can be well- or poorly-managed depending on LWUA’s strictness.

LWUA’s limited lending during past administrations pushed water districts into joint ventures with conglomerates. In many cases, service deteriorated instead of improving.

In April 2025 BBM ordered LWUA to investigate PrimeWater Infrastructure Corp. The consortium’s joint ventures with 76 water districts had worsened customer services. Affected were homes and shops spanning Cagayan Valley to Zamboanga peninsula.

Loudest complainants were 130,000 customers in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. Mere droplets came out of faucets, and only a few hours each day. Classes in schools in that city just outside Metro Manila are often suspended for lack of water.

Salonga undertook the investigation assisted by two management recruits – sibling friends from former jobs. LWUA chairman Atty. Lindley Santillan never got to see the report.

Some other crisis areas are Cagayan de Oro, Marinduque, Zamboanga City and Marawi City.

Razed by terrorists in 2017, Marawi City still has no water service, rehab overseer Nasser Pangandaman complained last week to Malacañang. Same with four seaside districts of Zamboanga City which terrorists burned down in 2013.

Traveling from far-flung island provinces, cities and municipalities, water district managers complain that Salonga refuses to see them without prior appointment. Unused to such officiousness, they have no one to turn to for their local woes.

Environment and Natural Resources acting Sec. Juan Miguel Cuna warns of impending “water bankruptcy.” National consumption is fast outpacing nature’s ability to replenish, he says.

Last month DENR USec. Carlos Primo David criticized the slow pace of water infrastructure development. Only one percent of the 40 million Filipinos lacking safe water access have been served. Luckily, his Water Resource Office was able to scrounge P485 million to service 440,000 individuals by end-2026 for an average P1,000 investment per head.

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