Manila Water Company: Manila Water expands sampling sites, assures 5.3 million residents of safe and potable water

Manila Water expands sampling sites, assures 5.3 million residents of safe and potable water

Posted: Tuesday July 3, 2007

Manila Water Company, Inc. has expanded the coverage of its water sampling and testing operations to include several towns in Rizal province within its service grid, thus assuring safe and potable water from faucets of homes of millions of residents in the East Zone of Metro Manila.

This gave rise to the recent creation, through Manila Water’s initiative, of the Rizal Drinking Water Quality Monitoring Committee, a special inter-agency body tasked to assure the company’s customers that only safe and potable water comes out of their faucets.

The monitoring group’s composition and function was patterned after its precursor, the Metro Manila Drinking Water Quality Monitoring Committee created much earlier by the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the state-run water facility servicing the metropolis prior to its privatization.

The quality water watchdog is headed by Dr. Gerardo Bayugo, DOH Region IV-A director, who also headed the MMDWQMC before his transfer to his current post.

Both monitoring teams are made up of experts from the Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the MWSS and local government units.

The DOH-led water service watchdogs meet every month to evaluate results of the sampling tests and issue periodic reports on the quality of faucet water in Metro Manila and suburbs.

To demonstrate its determined bid to keep water safe for its customers, Manila Water has identified 949 sampling points in its franchise area, including Antipolo City and the towns of Binangonan, San Mateo, Angono, Cainta, and Rodriguez (formerly Montalban) in Rizal province.

Vicky Santos, manager of Manila Water’s Quality and Regulation department, said four quality officers do the rounds of the sampling points on a daily basis to gather water samples which are eventually analyzed at the company’s ISO-accredited central laboratory.

Santos pointed out that the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water (PNSDW) mandated that there must be at least one sampling area for every 10,000 population. “The number of our sampling points is even 8% more that what is required. This is to ensure that water is safe and potable anywhere in our distribution network,” adds Santos.

The sampling points cover residential areas, low-income communities, commercial establishments and public service institutions such as schools, hospitals and markets.
The test results will subsequently be validated by the MWSS and the concerned local government units to ensure compliance with PNSDW standards.

Manila Water said that over the past nine years, it has consistently registered 100 percent compliance with water quality standards set by the PNSDW, “exceeding strict requirements for physical, chemical and bacteriological characteristics,” as certified by the MWSS Regulatory Office, DOH and the MMDWQMC.

In its latest report, the monitoring team said water from the faucets in Metro Manila’s East Zone remained “of the same quality with average residual chlorine of 0.72mg/L.”

“In fact, there has been no major water contamination in the East Zone of Metro Manila since 1997,” Santos stressed.