Manila Water Company: MWSS RO, Manila Water conduct public consultation

MWSS RO, Manila Water conduct public consultation

Posted: Tuesday June 19, 2007

The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System’s Regulatory Office (MWSS RO) together with its East Zone concessionaire Ayala-led Manila Water Company recently conducted a public consultation among its various stakeholders within its concession area. More than 300 participated in the stakeholder consultation representing local government units (LGUs), non-government organizations (NGOs), people’s organizations (POs), homeowners’ associations (HOAs) as well as residents within the 23 cities and municipalities under Manila Water’s service area.

This public consultation is part of a series of dialogues that the Regulatory Office started since the last quarter of 2006. It is aimed at gathering inputs from the different sectors on what programs and projects must be undertaken by the water concessionaire in the next five years, from 2008 to 2012, to further improve service to the 5.3 million people in the East Zone as well as ensure adequate water supply to meet the demand of the metropolis’ increasing population.

Chief Regulator Eduardo C. Santos explained that under the Concession Agreement (CA), a rate rebasing exercise is done every five years to assess the performance of the concessionaire for the preceding five years and similarly, requires the concessionaire to submit its plans and programs for the succeeding five years. The last rebasing was done in 2002. “We wanted the public to be informed of this exercise and get their suggestions and concerns that can be inputted into the plan. After all, it is the customers themselves who know what they need,” Chief Regulator Santos added.

Among the issues raised during the public consultation pertain to the need to develop new water sources to meet the increasing demand for the increasing population in the East Zone, the need for wastewater and sanitation, further service improvement in existing areas and expansion in unserved areas and network reliability.

The Chief Regulator averred that as Angat River is the only source of water for the Metropolitan Manila area, new water sources have to be developed in order to assure the reliability and sustainability of supply. Just recently, the government revived its plans to harness the US$1 billion Laiban Dam project which can supply about 1,830 million liters of water per day to Metro Manila while also generating about 25 megawatts of hydropower. Raul Concepcion, chairman of the Consumer and Oil Price Watch (COPW), however, said that his group will closely monitor the implementation as well as the financing and cost recovery mechanisms of the project.

Manila Water President Antonino T. Aquino, meanwhile, agreed with most communities’ desire to look into expanding the coverage of the wastewater and sanitation services of the concessionaire. Homeowners’ associations and residents of various cities and municipalities within the Manila Water concession area added that the incidence of diseases could also be traced to the absence of basic sanitation facilities especially among informal settlements. Recent environmental studies showed that 58% of the pollution in waterways and river systems are due to domestic waste. “Currently, only about 10% of our service area is connected to sewer lines. The rest still depends on individual or communal septic tanks which regularly have to be desludged every 5 to 7 years,” Mr. Aquino stressed.

Local chief executives led by Antipolo City Mayor and now Congressman-elect Angelito Gatlabayan, Rodriguez Mayor Pedro Cuerpo and Taguig Vice Mayor George Elias also raised the need to continue the expansion programs of the East Zone concessionaire to provide water services to the still unserved portions of Antipolo, Rodriguez, Taguig and the other Rizal towns.
Manila Water Group Director for Regulation and Corporate Development Virgilio C. Rivera, Jr., on the other hand, assured the local government units that service expansion and improvement will continue to be focus of Manila Water’s capital investment plan. Rivera also cited that part of the program is to minimize the risks and damages that may happen to the water network in times of disasters and calamities. “An earthquake and disaster-preparedness plan has also been prepared,” he added.

Randolph Sakai, Department Manager for Financial Regulation and concurrently the Chairman of the Rate Rebasing Committee, sees public consultations as important venues to enable Manila Water and the MWSS RO to come up with a business plan that would address the needs of the residents in the east concession area. Citing the need to pay particular attention to the concerns of the communities, Sakai mentioned that succeeding rounds of stakeholder consultations will be conducted in the next few months.

Non-government organizations such as the Philippine Water Partnership and Streams of Knowledge, and People’s Organizations also asked the MWSS RO and Manila Water to look into the pressing concerns of watershed management, policies on deepwell use, conversion of bulk connections to individual connections, water and wastewater recycling, and the inclusion of Laguna de Bay as an alternative source of water.